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IN MONTHLY VOLUMES. 

ANCIENT CLASSICS 

FOR 

ENGLISH READERS. 

EDITED BY THE 

Rev. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. 

Price $i.oo, bound in cloth. 

The aim of the present series will be to explain, sufficiently f of 
general readers y who these great writers were, and what they 
wrote ; to give, wherever possible, some connected outline oj 
the story which they tell, or the facts which they record, checked 
by the results of modern investigations ; to present some oJ 
their most striking passages in approved English translations, 
and to illustrate them generally from 7nodern writers; to 
serve, in short, as a popular retrospect of the chief literature 
of Greece and Rome. 



EXTRACTS FROM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES, 
Times. 

We can confidently recommend * Ancient Classics for English 
Readers * to all who have forgotten their Greek and desire to refresh 
their knowledge of Homer. As for those to whom the series is 
chiefly addressed, who have never learnt Greek at all, this little 
book gives them an opportunity v/hich they had not before, an op- 
portunity not only of remedying a want they must have often felt, but 
of remedying it by no patient and irksome toil, but by a few houn 
of pleasant reading. 



Edinbnrgli Courant. 
So excellently well is the work of condensation and explanation, 
with occasional exemplifications of the nature of the Homeric master- 
pieces by English translations, done, that one reads the little volumes 
with all the interest which is excited by well-told tales. The task of 
gaining information, which could only be performed by the merely 
English reader through laborious consultation of classical dictionaries, 
is so lightened and facilitated, that his first impulse on reading these 
admirable works, will probably be to seek fuller knowledge of the 
originals, so far as that at least can be obtained from translations. 
To the man whose Greek has grown rusty from long disuse, such 
pleasant guides will be as acceptable and quite as useful as to him 
who has never known the delights of the most melodious and musical 
of languages which the world has known. 

St Andrews Gazette. 
It is with great pleasure, therefore, that we hail the appearance of 
what promises to be an admirable series of the ancient classics for 
English readers. ... If the other volumes of this series now in 
preparation maintain the excellence of the first, we predict good and 
lasting results from the experiment. We have much pleasure in re- 
commending this volume to all our readers, and particularly to the 
youth of our schools, as affording far better mental nourishment than 
the abominable stuff that is at present written for and read by our 
boys in the shape'of sea -stories, sensational tales, and other unwhole- 
some yellow -covered trash. This volume will be found as interest- 
ing as any account of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round 
Table, from whose adventures, by the way, Mr Collins often draws 
happily and advantageously for illustration. With a complete guide 
to the whole range of classical literature, as this series promises to be, 
we are sure that a strong desire will be engendered for further ac- 
quaintance with the great writers of antiquity, through the many ex- 
cellent translations that we already possess. . . . We predict 
also, that many who only retain a few tags of wool gathered from the 
classic fold, or who may not have gone far in youth on the rough 
scholastic road in the lumbering machines of old coach days, will be 
induced to resume their journey in more approved means of locomo- 
tion ; and that those who now stand on the "retired list" of scholars 
will rejoice to renew personal acquaintance with their old friends. 
Anyhow, by the issue of these modest volumes, we are very confident 
in there resulting an increased appreciation of the form and spirit of 
the ancient literatures. 



Ancient Classics for English Readers 

EDITED BY THE 

REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS. M.A. 



C^ S AB 



The Volumes published of this Series contain 

HOMER : THE ILIAD, by the Editor. 

HOMER: THE ODYSSEY, by the Same. 

HERODOTUS, by George C. Swayne, M.A. 

C-^SAR, BY Anthony Trollope. 

VIRGIL, BY THE Editor. 

HORACE, BY Theodore Martin, 

w^SCHYLUS, BY Reginald S. Copleston, M.A. 

XENOPHON, BY Sir Alexander Grant, Bart., 
LL.D. 

CICERO, BY the Editor. 

The following Authors, by various Contributors, are 
in preparation : — 

PLINY'S LETTERS. 

EURIPIDES. 

ARISTOPHANES. 

JUVENAL. 

HESIOD. 

PLAUTUS. 

TERENCE. 

Others will follow. 

\ Volume will be published Quarterly, price $i.oq 



THE COMMENTARIES 



OF 



c j; S A R 



BY 



ANTHONY TROLLOPE 



PHILADELPHIA 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1872. 






.h' 



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'(?- 



COKTENTS 



CHAP. PAQV 

I. INTHODTJCTIO-JT, 1 

II. FIRST BOOK OF THE WAR IN GATJL. — C-fflSAR DKIVES 
FIRST THE SWISS AND THEN THE GERMANS OTTl 

OF GAUL.— B.C. 58, 28 

III. SECOND BOOK OF THE WAR IN GATJL.—C^SAR SUB- 
DUES THE BELGIAN TRIBES.— B.C. 57, . . 45 
IV. THIRD BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL.--C^SAR SUB- 
DUES THE WESTERN TRIBES OF GAUL. — B.C. 56, 54 
V. FOURTH BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL. — C^SAR 
CROSSES THE RHINE, SLAUGHTERS THE GER- 
MANS, AND GOES INTO BRITAIN. — B.C. 55, . 63 
VL FIFTH BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL. — C-^SAR's 
SECOND INVASION OF BRITAIN. — THE Gi^ULS 
RISE AGAINST HIM. — B.C. 54, . . . .74 
VII. SIXTH BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL. — C^SAR PUR- 
SUES AMBIORIX. — THE MANNERS OF THE GAULS 
AND OF THE GERMANS ARE CONTRASTED. — 

B.C. 53, 88 



yi CONTENTS. 

VIII. SEVENTH BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAIJL.--THE REVOLT 

OP VERCINGETORIX. — B.C. 52, . . . . 100 

IX. FIRST BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR. — C^SAR CROSSES 
THE RUBICON. — FOLLOWS POMPEY TO BRUNDU- 
SIUM.— AND CONQUERS AFRANIUS IN SPAIN. — 

B.C. 49, 116 

X. SECOND BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR. — THE TAKING OF 
MARSEILLES.— VARRO IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 
— THE FATE OF CURIO BEFORE UTIOA. — B.C. 49, 131 
XL THIRD BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR. — CiESAR FOLLOWS 
POMPEY INTO ILLYRIA. — THE LINES OF PETRA 
AND THE BATTLE OF PHARSALIA.— B.C. 48, . 146 
XII. CONCLUSION, ••••••• 174 



C^SAR. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



It may perhaps be fairly said that the Commentaries 
of Caesar are the beginning of modern history. He 
wrote, indeed, nearly two thousand years ago 5 but he 
wrote, not of times then long past, but of things which 
wore done under his own eyes, and of his own deeds. 
And he wrote of countries with which we are familiar, 
— of our Britain, for instance, which he twice invaded, 
of peoples not so far remote but that we can identify 
them with our neighbours and ourselves ; and he so 
wrote as to make us feel that we are reading actual 
history, and not romance. The simplicity of the nar- 
ratives which he has left is their chief characteristic, 
if not their greatest charm. We feel sure that the cir- 
cumstances which he tells us did occur, and that they 
occurred very nearly as he tells them. He deals with 
those great movements in Europe from which have 
A. c. vol. iv. A 



2 C^SAR. 

sprung, and to which we can trace, the present politi- 
cal condition of the nations. Interested as the scholar, 
or the reader of general literature, may be in the great 
deeds of the heroes of Greece, and in the burning words 
of Greek orators, it is almost impossible for him to 
connect by any intimate and thoroughly-trusted link 
the fortunes of Athens, or Sparta, or Macedonia, with 
our own times and our own position. It is almost 
equally difficult to do so in regard to the events of 
Eome and the Koman power before the time of Csesar. 
"We cannot realise and bring home to ourselves the 
Punic Wars or the Social War, the Scipios and the 
Gracchi, or even the contest for power between Marius 
and Sulla, as we do the Gallic Wars and the invasion 
of Britain, by which the civilisation of Eome was first 
carried westwards, or the great civil wars, — the " Eel- 
lum Civile," — by which was commenced a line of em- 
perors continued almost down to our own days, and to 
which in some degree may be traced the origin and 
formation of almost every existing European nation. 
It is no doubt true that if we did but know the facts 
correctly, we could refer back every political and social 
condition of the present day to the remotest period of 
man's existence ; but the interest fails us when the 
facts become doubtful, and when the mind begins to fear 
that history is mixed with romance. Herodotus is so 
mythic that what delight we have in his writings comes 
in a very slight degree from any desire on our part to 
form a continuous chain from the days of which he 
wrote down to our own. Between the marvels of He- 
rodotus and the facts of Caesar there is a great interval, 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

from which have come down to us the works of various 
noble historians ; but with Caesar it seems that that 
certainty commences which we would wish to regard as 
the distinguishing characteristic of modern history. 

It must be remembered from the heginning that 
Caesar wrote only of what he did or of what he caused 
to be done himself. At least he only so wrote in the 
two works of his which remain to us. We are told 
that he produced much besides his Comm-cntaries, — 
among other works, a poem,-^— but the two Commen- 
taries are all of his that we have. The former, in seven 
books, relates the facts of his seven first campaigns in 
Gaul for seven consecutive years ; those campaigns in 
which he reduced the nations living between the Ehine, 
the Rhone, the Mediterranean, the Pyrenees, and the 
sea which we now call the British Channel.'^' The 
latter Commentary relates the circumstances of the 
civil war in which he contended for power against Pom- 
pey, his former colleague, with Crassus, in the first 
triumvirate, and established that empire to which 
Augustus succeeded after a second short-lived trium- 
virate between himself and Lepidus and Antony. 

It is the object of this little volume to describe 
Caesar^s Commentaries for the aid of those who do 
not read Latin, and not to write Roman history; 
but it may be well to say something, in a few intro- 
ductory lines, of the life and character of our author. 
We are all more or less familiar with the name of 
Julius Caesar. In our early days we learned that he 

* There is an eighth book, referring to an eighth and ninth 
campaign, but it is not the work of Caesar. 



4 C^SAR. 

was the first of those twelve Roman emperors with 
whose names it was thought right to burden our 
young memories ; and we were taught to understand 
that when he began to reign there ceased to exist that 
form of republican government in which two consuls 
elected annually did in truth preside over the fortunes 
of the empire. There had first been seven kings, — 
whose names have also been made familiar to us, — then 
the consuls, and after them the twelve Caesars, of 
whom the great Julius was the first. So much we 
all know of him ; and we know, too, that he was killed 
in the Capitol by conspirators just as he was going to 
become emperor, although this latter scrap of know- 
ledge seems to be paradoxically at variance with the 
former. In addition to this we know that he was a 
great commander and conqueror and writer, who did 
things and wrote of them in the " veni, vidi, vici " 
style — saying of himself, " I came, I saw, I con- 
quered." We know that a great Roman army was 
intrusted to him, and that he used this army for the 
purpose of establishing his own power in Rome by 
taking a portion of it over the Rubicon, which little 
river separated the province which he had been ap- 
pointed to govern from the actual Roman territory 
within which, as a military servant of the magistrates 
of the republic, he had no business to appear as a 
general at the head of his army. So much we know ; 
and in the following very short memoir of the great 
commander and historian, no eff'ort shall be made, — as 
has been so frequently and so painfully done for us in 
late years, — to upset the teachings of our youth, and to 



INTRODUCTION, 6 

prove that the old lessons were wrong. They were 
all fairly accurate, and shall now only be supplemented 
by a few further circumstances which were doubtless 
once learned by all school-boys and school-girls, but 
which some may perhaps have forgotten since those 
happy days. 

Dean Merivale, in one of the early chapters of his 
admirable history of the Eomans under the Empire, 
declares that Caius Julius Caesar is the greatest name 
in history. He makes the claim without reserve, and 
attaches to it no restriction, or suggestion that such is 
simply his own opinion. Claims of this nature, made 
by writers on behalf of their pet-heroes, v/e are, all of 
us, generally inclined to dispute; but this claim, great 
as it is, can hardly be disputed. Dr Merivale does not 
say that Caesar was the greatest man that ever lived. 
In measuring such supremacy, men take for themselves 
various standards. To satisfy the judgment of one, it 
is necessary that a poet should be selected ; for another, 
a teacher of religion ; for a third, some intellectual hero 
who has assisted in discovering the secrets of nature 
by the operations of his own brain; for a fourth, a 
ruler, — and so on. But the names of some of these 
cannot be said to be great in history. Homer, Luther, 
Galileo, and Charles V., are great names, — as are also 
Shakespeare, Knox, Queen Elizabeth, and Newton. 
Among these, the two rulers would probably be the 
least in general admiration. But no one can assert that 
the names of the poets, divines, and philosophers, are 
greater than theirs in history. The Dean means that 
of all men who have lived, and whose deeds are known 



6 CjEsar. 

to us, Julius Caesar did most to move the world; and 
we think that the Dean is right. Those whom we 
might, perhaps, compare with Caesar, are Alexander, 
Charlemagne, Cromwell, iN'apoleon, and Washington. 
In regard to the first two, we feel, when claims are 
made for them, that they are grounded on the perform- 
ance of deeds only partially known to us. In the days 
of Alexander, history was still dark, — and it had be- 
come dark again in those of Charlemagne. What Crom- 
well did was confined to our own islands, and, though 
he was great for us, he does not loom as large before 
the eyes of mankind in general as does one who moved 
all Europe, present and future. If there be any fair 
antagonist to Caesar in this claim, it is ^Napoleon. As 
a soldier he was equally great, and the area of his 
operations was as extended. But there is an old say- 
ing which tells us that no one can be sure of his 
fortune till the end shall have come ; and Caesar's 
death on the steps of the Capitol was more in accord- 
ance with our ideas of greatness than that of I^apo- 
leon at St Helena. We cannot, moreover, but feel 
that there were fewer drawbacks from greatness in the 
personal demeanour of the Eoman ^'Imperator" and 
Dictator than in that of the French Emperor. Eor 
Julius Caesar was never really emperor, in that sense in 
which we use the word, and in accordance with which 
his successor Augustus really became an emperor. As 
to Washington, we may perhaps allow that in moral 
attributes he was the greatest of all. To aid his 
country he dared all, — even a rebel's disgraceful death, 
had he not succeeded where success was most improba 



INTRODUCTION, ^ 

ble ; and in all that he attempted he succeeded. His 

is the name that culminates among those of the men 
who made the United States a nation, and does so by 
the eager consent of all its people. And his work 
came altogether from patriotism, — with no alloy of 
personal ambition. But it cannot be said that the 
things he did were great as those which were done 
by Caesar, or that he himself was as potent in the 
doing of them. He ventured everything with as grand 
a purpose as ever warmed the heart of man, and he 
was successful ; but the things which he did were in 
themselves small in comparison with those effected by 
his less noble rival for fame. Mommsen, the German 
historian, describes Cassar as a man too great for the 
scope of his intelligence and power of delineation. 
" The historian," he says, speaking of Caesar, " when 
once in a thousand years he encounters the perfect, 
can only be silent regarding it." Napoleon also, in his 
life of Caesar, paints his hero as perfect ; but ISTapoleon 
when doing so is, in fact, claiming godlike perfection 
for that second Caesar, his uncle. And the perfection 
which he claims is not that of which Mommsen 
speaks. The German intends to convey to us his 
conviction that Caesar was perfect in human capacity 
and intelligence. [N'apoleon claims for him moral per- 
fection. " We may be convinced," says the Emperor, 
" by the above facts, that during his first consulate, 
one only motive animated Caesar, — namely, the public 
interest." We cannot, however, quite take the facts 
as the Emperor of the French gives them to us, nor 
can we share his conviction ; but the common consent 



8 CJESAB. 

of reading men will probably acknowledge that there is 
in history no name so great as that of Julius Caesar, — 
of whose written works some account is intended to be 
given in the following chapters. 

He was born just one hundred years before Christ, 
and came of an old noble Roman family, of which Ju- 
lius and not Ccesar was the distinctive name. Whence 
came the name of Csesar has been a matter of doubt 
and of legend. Some say that it arose from the thick 
hair of one of the Julian tribe ; others that a certain 
scion of the family, like Macduff, " was from his mo- 
ther's womb untimely ripped,'^ for which derivations 
Latin words are found to be opportune. Again we are 
told that one of the family once kept an elephant, — and 
we are referred to some eastern language in which the 
word for elephant has a sound like Caesar. Another 
legend also rose from Caesar's name, which, in the Gal- 
lic language of those days, — very luckily for Caesar, — 
sounded as though one should say, " Send him back.'' 
Caesar's horse once ran away with him, and carried him 
over to the enemy. An insolent Gaul, who knew him, 
called out, " Caesar, Caesar ! " and so the other Gauls, 
obeying the order supposed to be given, allowed the 
illustrious one to escape. It must be acknowledged, 
however, that the learned German who tells us this 
story expresses a contemptuous conviction that it can- 
not be true. Whatever may have produced the word, 
its significance, derived from the doings and writings 
of Caius Julius, has been very great. It has come to 
mean in various languages the holder of despotic power ; 
and though it is said that, as a fact, the Russian title 



INTRODUCTION, 9 

Czar has no connection with, the Eoman word, so great 
is the prestige of the name, that in the minds of men 
the popular appellation of the Eussian Emperor will 
always be connected with that of the line of the Eoman 
Emperor. 

Coesar was the nephew by marriage of that Marius 
who, with alternations of bloody successes and seem- 
ingly irreparable ruin, had carried on a contest with 
Sulla for supreme power in the republic. Sulla in 
these struggles had represented the aristocrats and pat- 
ricians, — what we perhaps may call the Conservative 
interest ; while Marius, whose origin was low, who had 
been a common soldier, and, rising from the ranks, had 
become the darling of the army and of the people, may 
perhaps be regarded as one who would have called him- 
self a Liberal, had any such term been known in those 
days. His liberality, — as has been the case with other 
political leaders since his time, — led him to personal 
power. He was seven times Consul, having secured his 
seventh election by atrocious barbarities and butcher- 
ings of his enemies in the city ; and during this last con- 
sulship he died. The young Caesar, though a patrician 
by birth, succeeded his uncle in the popular party, and 
seems from a very early age, — from his very boyhood, — 
to have looked forward to the power which he might 
win by playing his cards with discretion. 

And very discreet he was, — self-confident to a won- 
derful degree, and patient also. It is to be presumed 
that most of our rea(Jcrs know how the Eoman Eepub- 
lic fell, and the Eoman Empire became established as 
the result of the civil wars which began with Marius 



10 CjESAR, 

and ended with that '' young Octavius" whom we better 
recognise as Augustus Caesar. Julius Csesar was the 
nephew by marriage of Marius, and Augustus was the 
great-nephew and heir of Julius. By means of con- 
scriptions and murders, worse in their nature, though 
less probably in number, than those which disgraced 
the French Eevolution, the power which Marius 
achieved almost without foresight, for which the great 
Caesar strove from his youth upwards with constant 
foresight, was confirmed in the hands of Augustus, and 
bequeathed by him to the emperors. In looking back 
at the annals of the world, we shall generally find that 
despotic power has first grown out of popular move- 
ment against authority. It was so with our own 
Cromwell, has twice been so in the history of modern 
France, and certainly was so in the formation of the 
Eoman Empire. In the great work of establishing 
that empire, it was the mind and hand and courage of 
Caesar that brought about the result, whether it was for 
good or evil. And in looking at the lives of the three 
men — Marius, Csesar, and Augustus, who followed each 
other, and all worked to the same end, the destruction 
of that oligarchy which was called a Eepublic inEome — 
we find that the one was a man, while the others were 
beasts of prey. The cruelties of Marius as an old man, 
and of Augustus as a young one, were so astounding as, 
even at this distance, to horrify the reader, though he 
remembers that Christianity had not yet softened men's 
hearts. Marius, the old man, almost swam in the 
blood of his enemies, as also did his rival Sulla ; but 
the young Octavius, he whom the gods favoured so 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

long as the almost divioe"^ Augustus, cemented his 
throne with the blood of his friends. To complete the 
satisfaction of Lepidus and Antony, his comrades in 
the second triumyirate, he did not scruple to add to 
the list of those who were to die, the names of the 
nearest and dearest to him. Between these monsters 
of cruelty — between Marius and Sulla, who went before 
him, and Octavius and Antony who followed him — 
Csesar has become famous for clemency. And yet the 
hair of the reader almost stands on end with horror as 
C^sar recounts in page after page the stories of cities 
burned to the ground, and whole communities slaugh- 
tered in cold blood. Of the destruction of the women 
and children of an entire tribe, Csesar will leave the 
unimpassioned record in one line. But this at least 
may be said of Caesar, that he took no delight in 
slaughter. When it became in his sight expedient that 
a people should suffer, so that others might learn to 
yield and to obey, he could give the order apparently 
without an effort. And we hear of no regrets, or of any 
remorse which followed the execution of it. But blood- 
shed in itself was not sweet to him. He was a discreet, 
far-seeing man, and could do without a scruple what dis- 
cretion and caution demanded of him. 

And it may be said of Csesar that he was in some 
sort guided in his life by sense of duty and love of 
country ; as it may also be said of his great contem- 
poraries, Pompey and Cicero. With those who went 

* Coelo tonantem credidimiis Jovem 
Regnare ; prsesens Divus habebitur 
Augustus. 



12 CjESAR, 

before him, Marius and Sulla, as also with those who 
followed him, Antony and Augustus, it does not seem 
that any such motives actuated them. Love of power 
and greed, hatred of their enemies and personal ambi- 
tion, a feeling that they were urged on by their fates 
to seek for high place, and a resolve that it was better 
to kill than be killed, impelled them to their courses. 
These feelings were strong, too, with Caesar, as they are 
strong to this day with statesmen and with generals ; 
but mingled with them in Caesar's breast there was a 
noble idea, that he would be true to the greatness of 
Eome, and that he would grasp at power in order that 
the Eoman Empire might be well governed. Augustus, 
doubtless, ruled well ; and to Julius Caesar very little 
scope for ruling was allowed after his battling was 
done; but to Augustus no higher praise can be 
assigned than that he had the intelligence to see that 
the temporary wellbeing of the citizens of Rome was 
the best guarantee for his own security. 

Early in life Caesar lifted himself to high position, 
though he did so in the midst of dangers. It was the 
wonder of those around him that Sulla did not mur- 
der him when he was young, — crush him while he 
was yet, as it were, in his shell ; but Sulla spared 
him, and he rose apace. We are told that he became 
priest of Jupiter at seventeen, and he was then already 
a married man. He early trained himself as a public 
orator, and amidst every danger espoused the popular 
cause in Eome. He served his country in. the East, — in 
Bithynia, probably, — escaping, by doing so, the perils of 
a residence in the city. He became Quaestor and then 



INTRODUCTION, 13 

/Edile, assisted "by all the Marian party, as that party 
would assist the rising man whom they regarded as 
their future leader. He attacked and was attacked, 
and was *^ indefatigable in harassing the aristo- 
cracy,"* who strove, but strove in vain, to crush 
him. Though young, and addicted to all the 
pleasures of youth, — a trifler, as Sulla once called 
him, — he omitted to learn nothing that was neces- 
sary for him to know as a chief of a great party 
and a leader of great armies. When he was thirty- 
seven he was made Pontifex Maximus, the official 
chief of the priesthood of Eome, the office gi'eatest 
in honour of any in the city, although opposed by 
the whole weight of the aristocracy, and although 
Catulus was a candidate, who, of all that party, was 
the highest not only in renown but in virtue. He 
became Praetor the next year, though again he was 
opposed by all the influence of those who feared him. 
And, after his twelve months of office, he assumed 
the government of Spain, — the province allotted to 
him as Propraetor, in accordance with the usage of the 
Republic, — in the teeth of a decree of the Senate order- 
ing him to remain in Rome. Here he gained his first 
great military success, first made himself known to 
his soldiery, and came back to Rome entitled to the 
honour of a triumph. 

But there was still another step on the ladder of the 

State before he could assume the position which no 

doubt he already saw before him. He must be Consul 

before he could be the master of many legions, and in 

* The words are taken from Dean Merivale's history. 



14 C^SAR. 

order that he might sue in proper form for the consul- 
ship, it was necessary that he should abandon his 
Triumph. He could only triumph as holding the office 
of General of the Eepublic's forces, and as General or 
Imperator he could not enter the city. He abandoned 
the Triumph, sued for his office in the common fashion, 
and enabled the citizens to say that he preferred their 
service to his personal honours. At the age of forty-one 
he became Consul. It was during the struggle for the 
consulship that the triumvirate was formed, of which 
subsequent ages have heard so much, and of which 
Romans at the time heard probably so little. Pompey, 
who had been the political child of Sulla, and had 
been the hope of the patricians to whom he belonged, 
had returned to Rome after various victories which he 
had achieved as Proconsul in the East, had triumphed, 
— and had ventared to recline on his honours, dis- 
banding his army and taking to himself the credit of 
subsiding into privacy. The times were too rough for 
such honest duty, and Pompey found himself for a 
while slighted by his party. Though he had thought 
himself able to abandon power, he could not bear the 
loss of it. It may be that he had conceived himself 
able to rule the city by his influence without the aid 
of his legions. Caesar tempted him, and they two with 
Crassus, who was wanted for his wealth, formed the 
first triumvirate. By such pact among themselves 
they were to rule all Eome and all Rome's provinces ; 
but doubtless, by resolves within himself of which no 
one knew, Caesar intended even then to grasp the do- 
minion of the whole in his own hands. During the 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

years that followed, — the years in which Caesar was en- 
gaged in his Gallic wars, — Pompey remained at Eome, 
not indeed as Caesar's friend — for that hollow friend- 
ship was hrought to an end by the death of Julia, 
Caesar's daughter, whom Pompey, though five years 
Caesar's elder, had married — but in undecided rivalship 
to the active man who in foreign wars was preparing 
legions by which to win the Empire. Afterwards, 
when Caesar, as we shall hear, had crossed the Bubicon, 
their enmity was declared. It was natural that they 
should be enemies. In middle life, Pompey, as Ave 
have seen, had married Caesar's daughter, and Caesar's 
second wife had been a Pompeia.*^ But when they 
were young, and each was anxious to attach himself to 
the politics of his own party, Pompey had married the 
daughter-in-law of Sulla, and Caesar had married the 
daughter of Cinna, who had almost been joined with 

* She was that wife v/ho was false with Clodius, and whom 
Csesar divorced, declaring that Caesar's wife must not even be 
suspected. He would not keep the false wife ; neither would 
he at that moment take part in the accusation against Clodius, 
who was of his party, and against whom such accusation backed 
by Csesar would have been fatal. The intrusion of the dema- 
gogue into Caesar's house in the pursuit of Caesar's wife dur- 
ing the mysteries of the Bona Dea became the subject of a trial 
in Rome. The offence was terrible and was notorious. Clodius, 
who was hated and feared by the patricians, was a favourite 
with the popular party. The offender was at last brought to 
trial, and was acquitted by venal judges. A word spoken by 
the injured husband would have insured his condemnation, 
but that word Csesar would not speak. His wife he could 
divorce, but he would not jeopardise his power with his own 
party by demanding the punishment of him who had debauched 
her. 



16 CjESAR, 

Marius in leading the popular party. Such having 
been the connection they had made in their early lives, it 
was natural that Pompey and Caesar should be enemies, 
and that the union of those two with any other third 
in a triumvirate should be but a hollow compromise, 
planned and carried out only that time might be gained. 
Caesar was now Consul, and from his consular chair 
laughed to scorn the Senate and the aristocratic col- 
league with whom he was joined, — Bibulus, of whom 
we shall again hear in the Commentary on the civil 
war. During his year of office he seems to have 
ruled almost supreme and almost alone. The Senate 
was forced to do his bidding, and Pompey, at any rate 
for this year, was his ally. We already know that to 
praetors and to consuls, after their year of office in the 
city, were confided the government of the great pro- 
vinces of the Eepublic, and that these officers while so 
governing were called propraetors and proconsuls. 
After his praetorship Caesar had gone for a year to 
southern Spain, the province which had been assigned 
to him, whence he came back triumphant, — but not to 
enjoy his Triumph. At the expiration of his consul- 
ship the joint provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and lUy- 
ricum were assigned to him, not for one year, but for 
five years ; and to these was added Transalpine Gaul, 
by which grant dominion was given to him over all 
that country which we now know as I^orthern Italy, 
over Illyria to the east, and to the west across the 
Alps, over the Eoman province already e^^tablished in 
the south of France. This province, bou'^^icd on the 
north by Lake Leman and the Swiss mdl^tains, ran 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

south, to tlie Mediterranean, and to the west half 
across the great neck of land which joins Spain to 
the continent of Europe. This province of Trans- 
alpine Gaul was already Koman, and to Caesar was 
intrusted the task of defending this, and of defending 
Rome itself, from the terrible valour of the Gauls. 
That he might do this it was necessary that he should 
collect his legions in that other Gaul which we now 
know as the north of Italy. 

It does not seem that there was any preconceived 
idea that Caesar should reduce all Gallia beneath the 
Roman yoke. Hitherto Rome had feared the Gauls, 
and had been subject to their inroads. The Gauls in 
former years had even made their way as invaders into 
the very city, and had been bought out with a ransom. 
They had spread themselves over ]N"orthern Italy, and 
hence, when Northern Italy was conquered by Roman 
arms, it became a province under the name of Cisalpine 
Gaul. Then, during the hundred years which preceded 
Caesar's wars, a province was gradually founded and 
extended in the south of France, of which Marseilles 
was the kernel. Massilia had been a colony of Greek 
merchants, and was supported by the alliance of Rome. 
Whither such alliance leads is known to all readers 
of history. The Greek colony became a Roman town, 
and the Roman province stretched itself around the 
town. It was Caesar's duty, as governor of Transalpine 
Gaul, to see th^t the poor province was not hurt by 
those ravaging Gauls. How he performed that duty 
he tells us ' his first Commentary. 

During ,Jie fourth year of his office, while Pompey 
A. c. ♦ol. iv. B 



18 C^SAR, 

and Crassus, his colleagues in the then existing trium- 
virate, were consuls, his term of dominion over the 
three provinces was prolonged by the addition of five 
other years. But he did not see the end of the ten 
years in that scene of action. Julia, his daughter, 
had died, and his great rival was estranged from him. 
The Senate had clamoured for his recall, and Pompey, 
with douhtfiil words, had assented. A portion of his 
army was demanded from him, was sent by him into Italy 
in obedience to the Senate, and shortly afterwards was 
placed under the command of Pompey. Then Caesar 
found that the Italian side of the Alps was the more 
convenient for his purposes, that the Hither or Cis- 
alpine Gaul demanded his services, and that it would 
be well for him to be near the Pubicon. The second 
Commentary, in three books, ' De Bello Civili,' giving 
us his record of the civil war, tells us of his deeds and 
fortunes for the next two years, — the years B.C. 49 and 
48. The continuation of his career as a general is 
related in three other Commentaries, not by his own 
hand, to which, as being beyond the scope of this 
volume, only short allusion will be made. Then came 
one year of power, full of glory, and, upon the whole, 
well used ; and after that there came the end, of which 
the tale has been so often told, when he fell, stabbed 
by friend and foe, at the foot of Pompey's pillar in 
the Capitol. 

It is only further necessary that a few words should 
be added as to the character of Caesar's writings, — for 
it is of his writings rather than of his career that it is 
intended here to give some idea to those who have not 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

an opportunity of reading them. Csesar's story can 
hardly be told in this little volume, for it is the his- 
tory of the world as the world then was. The word 
which our author has chosen as a name for his work, — 
and which now has become so well known as connected 
with Caesar, that he who uses it seems to speak of Caesar, 
— means, in Caesar's sense, a Memoir. Were it not for 
Caesar, a " Commentary " would be taken to signify that 
which the critic had added, rather than the work which 
the author had first produced. Caesar's ' ' Commentaries " 
are memoirs written by himself, descriptive of his differ- 
ent campaigns, in which he treats of himself in the third 
person, and tells his story as it might have been told 
by some accompanying scribe or secretary. This being 
so, we are of course driven to inquire whether some 
accompanying scribe or secretary may not in truth have 
done the work. And there is doubtless one great argu- 
ment which must be powerful with us all towards the 
adoption of such a surmise. The amount of work which 
Caesar had on hand, not only in regard to his campaigns, 
but in the conduct of his political career, was so great 
as to have overtasked any brain without the addition of 
literary labour. Surely no man was ever so worked ; 
for the doctrine of the division of labour did not pre- 
vail then in great affairs as it does now. Caesar was not 
only a general ; he was albo an engineer, an astrono- 
mer, an orator, a poet, a high priest — to whom, as such, 
though himself, as we are told, a disbeliever in the gods 
of Olympus, the intricate and complicated system of 
Eoman worship was a necessary knowledge. And he 
was a politician, of whom it may be said that, though 



20 C^SAR. 

he was intimately acquainted with the ferocity of op- 
position, he knew nothing of its comparative leisure. 
We have had busy statesmen writing books, two prime 
ministers translating Homer, another writing novels, a 
fourth known as a historian, a dramatist, and a bio- 
grapher. But they did not lead armies as well as the 
Houses of Parliament, and they were occasionally blessed 
by the opportunities of comparative political retirement 
which opposition affords. Erom the beginning of the 
Gallic war, Caesar was fighting in person every year but 
one till he died. It was only by personal fighting that 
he could obtain success. The reader of the following 
pages will find that, with the solitary exception of the 
siege of Marseilles, nothing great was done for him in 
his absence. And he had to make his army as well as 
to lead it. Legion by legion, he had to collect it as he 
needed it, and to collect it by the force of his own char- 
acter and of his own name. The abnormal plunder 
with which it was necessary that his soldiers should be 
allured to abnormal valour and toil had to be given as 
though from his own hand. For every detail of the sol- 
diers' work he was responsible ; and at the same time 
it was incumbent on him so to manipulate his Eoman 
enemies at Rome, — and, harder still than that, his Ro- 
man friends, — that confusion and destruction should not 
fall upon him as a politician. Thus weighted, could 
he write his own Commentaries ? There is reason to 
believe that there was collected by him, no doubt with 
the aid of his secretaries, a large body of notes which 
were known as the Ephemerides of Caesar, — ^jottings 
down, as we may say, taken from day to day. Were 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

not the Commentaries which bear Caesar's name com- 
posed from these notes by some learned and cunning 
secretary 1 

These notes have been the cause of much scholastic 
wrath to some of the editors and critics. One learned 
German, hotly arguing that Caesar wrote no Ephem- 
erides, does allow that somebody must have written 
down the measurements of the journeys, of the moun- 
tains, and of the rivers, the numbers also of the cap- 
tives and of the slaves. "* ^' I^ot even I," says he, — 
" not even do I believe that Csesar was able to keep 
all these things simply in his memory." Then he goes 
on to .assert that to the keeping of such notes any 
scribe was equal ; and that it was improbable that 
Caesar could have found time for the keeping of notes 
when absolutely in his tent. The indignation and 
enthusiasm are comic, but the reasoning seems to 
be good. The notes were probably collected under 
Caesar's immediate eyes by his secretaries ; but there 
is ample evidence that the Commentaries themselves 
are Caesar's own work. They seem to have become 
known at once to the learned Eomans of the day; and 
Cicero, who was probably the most learned, and cer- 
tainly the best critic of the time, speaks of them with- 
out any doubt as to their authorship. It was at once 
known that the first seven hooks of the Gallic War 
were written by Caesar, and that the eighth was not. 
This seems to be conclusive. Eut in addition to this, 
there is internal evidence. Caesar writes in the third 
person, and is very careful to maintain that mode of 
* Nipperdeius. 



22 CjESAR. 

expression. But he is not so careful but that on three 
or four occasions he forgets himself, and speaks in the 
first person. ]^o other writer, writing for Caesar, would 
have done so. And there are certain trifles in the 
mode of telling the story, which must have been per- 
sonal to the man. He writes of '' young " Crassus, and 
^^ young '* Brutus, as no scribe would have written; 
and he shows, first his own pride in obtaining a legion 
from Pompey^s friendship, and then his unmeasured 
disgust when the Senate demand and obtain from him 
that legion and another one, and when Pompey uses 
them against himself, in a fashion which would go far 
to prove the authenticity of each Commentary, were 
any proof needed. But the assent of Caesar's contem- 
poraries suffices for this without other evidence. 

And it seems that they were written as the wars 
were carried on, and that each was published at once. 
Had it not been so, we could not understand that 
Csesar should have begun the second Commentary 
before he had finished the first. It seems that he 
was hindered by the urgency of the Civil War from 
writing what with him would have been the two 
last books of the Gallic War, and therefore put the 
completion of that work into the hands of his friend 
Hirtius, who wrote the memoir of the two years in 
one book. And Caesar's mode of speaking of men who 
were at one time his friends and then his enemies, 
shows that his first Commentary was completed and 
out of hand before the other was written. Labienus, 
who in the Gallic War was Caesar's most trusted lieu- 
tenant, went over to the other side and served under 
Pompey in the Civil War. He could not have failed 



INTRODUCTION, 23 

to allude in some way to the desertion of Labienus, 
in the first Commentary, had Labienus left him and 
joined Pompey while the first Commentary was still 
in his hands. 

His style was at once recognised by the great literary 
critic of the day as being excellent for its intended 
purpose. Caesar is manifestly not ambitious of liter- 
ary distinction, but is very anxious to convey to his 
readers a narrative of his own doings, which shall be 
graphic, succinct, intelligible, and sufficiently well ex- 
pressed to insure the attention of readers. Cicero, the 
great critic, thus speaks of the Commentaries ; '' Yalde 
quidam, inquam, probandos ; nudi enim sunt, recti, et 
venusti, omni ornatu orationis, tanquam veste, de- 
tracto." The passage is easily understood, but not 
perhaps very easily translated into English. " I pro- 
nounce them, indeed, to be very commendable, for 
they are simple, straightforward, agreeable, with all 
rhetorical ornament stripped from them, as a garment 
is stripped.'* This was written by Cicero while Caesar 
was yet living, as the context shows. And Cicero 
does not mean to imply that Caesar's writings are bald 
or uncouth : the word " venusti " is evidence of 
this. And again, speaking of Caesar's language, 
Cicero says that Caesar spoke with more finished 
choice of words than almost any other orator of the 
day. And if he so spoke, he certainly so wrote, for 
the great speeches of the Eomans were all written 
compositions. Montaigne says of Caesar : " I read this 
author with somewhat more reverence and respect than 
is usually allowed to human writings, one while con- 
sidering him in his person, by his actions and miracu- 



24 CjESAJR. 

lous greatness, and another in the purity and inimitable 
polish of his language and style, wherein he not only 
excels all other historians, as Cicero confesses, but per- 
ad venture even Cicero himself." Cicero, however, 
confesses nothing of the kind, and Montaigne is so far 
wrong. Caesar was a great favourite with Montaigne, 
who always speaks of his hero with glowing enthu- 
siasm. 

To us who love to make our language clear by the 
number of words used, and who in writing rarely give 
ourselves time for condensation, the closely -packed 
style of Csesar is at first somewhat difficult of compre- 
hension. It cannot be read otherwise than slowly 
till the reader's mind is trained by practice to Csesarean 
expressions, and then not with rapidity. Three or 
four adjectives, or more probably participles, joined to 
substantives in a sentence, are continually intended 
to convey an amount of information for which, with 
us, three or four other distinct sentences would be 
used. It is almost impossible to give the meaning of 
Caesar in English without using thrice as many words 
as he uses. The same may be said of many Latin 
writers, — perhaps of all ; so great was the Eoman 
tendency to condensation, and so great is ours to 
dilution. But with Caesar, though every word means 
much, there are often many words in the same sen- 
tence, and the reader is soon compelled to acknowledge 
that skipping is out of the question, and that quick 
reading is undesirable. 

That which will most strike the ordinary English 
reader in the narrative of Caesar is the cruelty of the 
Romans, — cruelty of which Caesar himself is guilty to 



INTRODUCTION, 25 

a frightful extent, and of which he never expresses 
horror. And yet among his contemporaries he achieved 
a character for clemency which he has retained to the 
present day. In describing the character of Caesar, 
without reference to that of his contemporaries, it is 
impossible not to declare him to have been terribly 
cruel. From bloodthirstiness he slaughtered none; 
but neither from tenderness did he spare any. All 
was done from policy ; and when policy seemed to him 
to demand blood, he could, without a scruple, — as far 
as we can judge, without a pang, — order the destruction 
of human beings, having no regard to number, sex, age, 
innocence, or helplessness. Our only excuse for him 
is that he was a Eoman, and that Eomans were indif- 
ferent to blood. Suicide was with them the common 
mode of avoiding othervnse inevitable misfortune, and 
it was natural that men who made light of their own 
lives should also make light of the lives of others. 
Of all those with whose names the reader will become 
acquainted in the folloAving pages, hardly one or two 
died in their beds. Caesar and Pompey, the two 
great ones, were murdered. Dumnorix, the ^duan, 
was killed by Caesar's orders. Yercingetorix, the gal- 
lantest of the Gauls, was kept alive for years that his 
death might grace Caesar's Triumph. Ariovistus, the 
German, escaped from Caesar, but we hear soon after 
of his death, and that the Germans resented it. He 
doubtless was killed by a Eoman weapon. What 
became of the hunted Ambiorix we do not know, 
but his brother king Cativolcus poisoned himself with 
the juice of yew-tree. Crassus, the partner of Caesar 
and Pompey in the first triumvirate, was killed b7 



26 CjESAR. 

the Parthians. Young Crassus, the son, Caesar's 
officer in Gaul, had himself killed by his own men 
that he might not fall into the hands of the Par- 
thians, and his head was cut oif and sent to his 
father. Labienus fell at Munda, in the last civil 
war in Spain. Quintus Cicero, Caesar's lieuten- 
ant, and his greater brother, the orator, and his son, 
perished in the proscriptions of the second trium- 
virate. Titurius and Cotta were slaughtered with all 
their army by Ambiorix. Afranius was killed by 
Caesar's soldiers after the last battle in Africa. Petreius 
was hacked to pieces in amicable contest by King 
Juba. Yarro indeed lived to be an old man, and to 
write many books. Domitius, who defended Mar- 
seilles for Pompey, was killed in the flight after Phar- 
salia. Trebonius, who attacked Marseilles by land, 
was killed by a son-in-law of Cicero at Smyrna. Of 
Decimus Brutus, who attacked Marseilles by sea, one 
Camillus cut off the head and sent it as a present to 
Antony. Curio, who attempted to master the pro- ^ 
vince of Africa on behalf of Caesar, rushed amidst his 
enemy's swords and was slaughtered. King Juba, 
who conquered him, failing to kill himself, had him- 
self killed by a slave. Attius Varus, who had held 
the province for Pompey, fell afterwards at Munda. 
Marc Antony, Caesar's great lieutenant in the Pharsa- 
lian wars, stabbed himself. Cassius Longinus, another 
lieutenant under Caesar, was drowned. Scipio, Poni- 
pey's partner in greatness at Pharsalia, destroyed him- 
self in Africa. Bibulus, his chief admiral, pined to 
death. Young Ptolemy, to whom Pompey fled, was 
drowned in the Nile. The fate of his sister Cleopatra 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

is known to all the world. Pliarnaces, Caesar's enemy 
in Asia, fell in battle. Cato destroyed himself at Utica. 
Pompey's eldest son, Cnseus, was caught wounded in 
Spain and slaughtered. Sextus the younger was 
killed some years afterwards by one of Antony's sol- 
diers. Brutus and Cassius, the two great conspirators, 
both committed suicide. But of these two we hear 
little or nothing in the Commentaries; nor of Augustus 
Caesar, who did contrive to live in spite of all the 
bloodshed through which he had waded to the throne. 
Among the whole number there are not above three, if 
so many, who died fairly fighting in battle. 

The above is a list of the names of men of mark, — 
of warriors chiefly, of men who, with their eyes open, 
knowing what was before them, went out to encounter 
danger for certain purposes. The bloody catalogue is 
so complete, so nearly comprises all whose names are 
mentioned, that it strikes the reader with almost a 
comic horror. But when we come to the slaughter of 
whole towns, the devastation of country effected pur- 
posely that men and women might starve, to the , 
abandonment of the old, the young, and the tender, 
that they might perish on the hillsides, to the mutila- 
tion of crowds of men, to the burning of cities told us 
in a passing word, to the drowning of many thousands, 
— mentioned as we should mention the destruction of 
a brood of rats, — the comedy is all over, and the heart 
becomes sick. Then it is that we remember that the 
coming of Christ has changed all things, and that men 
now, — though terrible things have been done since 
Christ came to us, — are not as men were in the days 
of Caesar. 



CHAPTER 11. 

FIRST BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL. — C^SAR DRIVES FIRST THE 
SWISS AND THEN THE GERMANS OUT OF GAUL. — B.C. 58. 

It has been remarked in the preceding chapter 
that Caesar does not appear to have received any 
commission for the subjugation of Gaul when he took 
military charge of his three provinces. The Gauls 
were still feared in Rome, and it was his duty to see 
that they did not make their way over the Alps into 
the Roman territory. It was also his duty to protect 
from invasion, and also from rebellion, that portion of 
Gaul which had already been constituted a Roman 
province, but in which the sympathies of the people 
were still rather with their old brethren than with 
their new masters. The experience, however, which 
we have of great and encroaching empires tells us how 
probable it is that the protection of that which the 
strong already holds should lead to the grasping of 
more, till at last all has been grasped. It is thus that 
our own empire in India has grown. It was thus that 
the Spanish empire grew in America. It is thus that 
the empire of the United States is now growing. It 
was thus that Prussia, driven, as we all remember, by 



CjEsars probable intentions, 29 

the necessity of self-preservation, took ]N'assau the other 
day, and Hanover and Holstein and Hesse. It was 
thus that the wolf claimed all the river, not being able 
to endure the encroaching lamb. The humane reader 
of history execrates, as he reads, the cruel, all-absorb- 
ing, ravenous wolf. But the philosophical reader per- 
ceives that in this way, and in no other, is civilisation 
carried into distant lands. The wolf, though he be 
a ravenous wolf, brings with him energy and know- 
ledge. 

What may have been Caesar's own aspirations in 
regard to Gaul, when the government of the provinces 
was confided to him, we have no means of knowing. 
We may surmise, — indeed we feel that we know, — that 
he had a project in hand much greater to him, in his 
view of its result, than could be the adding of any 
new province to the Eepublic, let the territory added 
be as wide as all Gaul. He had seen enough of 
Roman politics to know that real power in Eome could 
only belong to a master of legions. Both Marius and 
Sulla had prevailed in the city by means of the armies 
which they had levied as the trusted generals of the 
Eepublic. Pompey had had his army trained to 
conquest in the East, and it had been expected that 
he also would use it to the same end. He had been 
magnanimous, or half-hearted, or imprudent, as critics 
of his conduct might choose to judge him then and 
may choose to judge him now, and on reaching Italy 
from the East had disbanded his legions. As a con- 
sequence, he was at that moment, when Caesar was 
looking out into the future and preparing his own 



THE WAR IN GAUL.— FIRST BOOK. 



career, fain to seek some influence in the city by join- 
ing himself in a secret compact with Caesar, his natural 
enemy, and with Crassus. Csesar, seeing all this, 
knowing how Marius and Sulla had succeeded and had 
failed, seeing what had come of the magnanimity of 
Pompey — resolved no doubt that, whatever might be 
the wars in which they should be trained, he would 
have trained legions at his command. "When, there- 
fore, he first found a cause for war, he was ready for 
war. He had not been long proconsul before there 
came a wicked lamb and drank at his stream. 

In describing to us the way in which he conquered 
lamb after lamb throughout the whole country which 
he calls Gallia, he tells us almost nothing of himself. 
Of his own political ideas, of his own ambition, even 
of his doings in Italy through those winter months 
which he generally passed on the Roman side of the 
Alps, having left his army in winter quarters under 
his lieutenants, he says but a very few words. His 
record is simply the record of the campaigns; and 
although he now and then speaks of the dignity of 
the Eepublic, he hardly ever so far digresses from the 
narrative as to give to the reader any idea of the 
motives by which he is actuated. Once in these seven 
memoirs of seven years* battling in Gaul, and once 
only, does he refer to a motive absolutely personal to 
himself. When he succeeded in slaughtering a fourth 
of the emigrating Swiss, which was his first military 
success in Gaul, he tells us that he had then revenged 
an injury to himself as well as an injury to the Re- 
public, because the grandfather of his father-in-law 



THE MANNER OF CjESARS NARRATIVE, 31 

had in former wars been killed by the very^iribe wliich 
he had just destroyed ! 

It is to be observed, also, that he does not intention- 
ally speak in the first person, and that when he does so 
it is in some passage of no moment, in which the person- 
ality is accidental and altogether trivial. He does not 
speak of " I " and " me," but of Caesar, as though he, 
Caesar, who wrote the Commentary, were not the 
Caesar of whom he is writing. ]^ot unfrequently he 
speaks strongly in praise of himself; but as there is 
no humility in his tone, so also is there no pride, even 
when he praises himself. He never seems to boast, 
though he tells us of his own exploits as he does of those 
of his generals and centurions. Without any diffi- 
dence he informs us now and again how, at the end 
of this or that campaign, a '' supplication,'' or public 
festival and thanksgiving for his victories, was decreed 
in Eome, on the hearing of the news, — to last for fifteen 
or twenty days, as the case might be. 

Of his difficulties at home, — the political difficulties 
with which he had to contend, — he says never a word. 
And yet at times they must have been very harassing. 
We hear from other sources that during these wars in 
Gaul his conduct was violently reprobated in Eome, 
in that he had, with the utmost cruelty, attacked and 
crushed states supposed to be in amity wdth Eome, and 
that it was once even proposed to give him up to the 
enemy as a punishment for grievous treachery to the 
enemy. Had it been so resolved by the Eoman Senate, 
— had such a law been enacted, — the power to carry 
out the law would have been wanted. It was easier 



1 '^i 



32 THE WAR IN GAUL.—^'IRST BOOK, 

to grant a *^ supplication" for twenty days than to stop 
his career after his legions had come to know him. 

Nor is there very much said by Caesar of his strategic 
difficulties ; though now and then, especially when 
his ships are being knocked about on the British 
coast, and again when the iron of his heel has so 
bruised the Gauls that they all turn against him in 
one body under Vercingetorix, the reader is allowed to 
see that he is pressed hard enough. But it is his rule 
to tell the thing he means to do, the way he does it, 
and the completeness of the result, in the fewest pos- 
sible words. If any student of the literature of battles 
would read first Caesar's seven books of the Gallic "War, 
and then Mr Kinglake's first four volumes of the 
'Invasion of the Crimea,' he would be able to com- 
pare two most wonderful examples of the dexterous 
use of words, in the former of which the narrative is 
told with the utmost possible brevity, and in the latter 
with almost the utmost possible prolixity. And yet 
each narrative is equally clear, and each equally dis- 
tinguished by so excellent an arrangement of words, 
that the reader is forced to acknowledge that the story 
is told to him by a great master. 

In praising others, — his lieutenants, his soldiers, and 
occasionally his enemies, — Caesar is often enthusiastic, 
though the praise is conferred by a word or two, — is 
given, perhaps, simply in an epithet added on for that 
purpose to a sentence planned with a wholly diff'erent 
purpose. Of blame he is very sparing ; so much so, 
that it almost seems that he looked upon certain 
imperfections, in regard even to faith as well as valour 



THE MANNER OF CJ^SAR'S NARRATIVE, 33 

OJT prudence, as necessary to humanity, and pardonable 
because of their necessity. He can tell of the absolute 
destruction of a legion through the folly and perhaps 
cowardice "of one of his lieutenants, without heaping a 
word of reproach on the name of the unfortunate. He 
can relate how a much-favoured tribe fell off from their 
faith again and again without expressing anger at their 
faithlessness, and can explain how they were, — hardly 
forgiven, but received again as friends, — ^because it 
suited him so to treat them. But again he can tell us, 
without apparently a quiver of the pen, how he could 
devote to destruction a city with all its women and all 
its children, so that other cities might know what 
would come to them if they did not yield and obey, 
and become vassals to the godlike hero in whose 
hands Providence had placed their lives and their 
possessions. 

It appears that Caesar never failed to believe in 
himself. He is far too simple in his language, and too 
conscious of his own personal dignity, to assert that 
he has never been worsted. But his very simplicity 
seems to convey the assurance that such cannot ulti- 
mately be the result of any campaign in which he is 
engaged. He seems to imply that victory attends him 
so certainly that it would be futile in any case to dis- 
cuss its probability. He feared no one, and was there- 
fore the cause of awe to others. He could face his 
own legions when they would not obey his call to 
arms, and reduce them to obedience by a word. 
Lucan, understanding his character well, says of him 
that " he deserved to be feared, for he feared nothing;" 

A. c. vol. iv c 



34 THE WAR IJSr GAUL.— FIRST BOOK. 

" meruitque timeri Nil metuens." He writes of himself 
as we might imagine some god would write who knew 
that his divine purpose must of course prevail, and 
who would therefore never he in the way of entertain- 
ing a douht. With Caesar there is always this godlike 
simplicity, which makes his *^Veni, vidi, vici," the 
natural expression of his mind as to his own mode of 
action. The same thing is felt in the very numerous 
hut very hrief records of the punishments which he in- 
flicted. Cities are left desolate, as it were with a wave 
of his hand, but he hardly deigns to say that his oAvn 
hand has even been waved. He tells us of one Acco 
who had opposed him, that, *^Graviore sententia pro- 
nunciata," — as though there had been some jury to 
pronounce this severe sentence, which was in fact pro- 
nounced only by himself, Caesar, — he inflicted punish- 
ment on him *' more majorum." We learn from other 
sources that this punishment consisted in being strip- 
ped naked, confined by the neck in a cleft stick, and 
then bei]ig flogged to death. In the next words, hav- 
ing told us in half a sentence that he had made the 
country too hot to hold the fugitive accomplices of the 
tortured chief, he passes on into Italy with the majes- 
tic step of one much too great to dwell long on these 
small but disagreeable details. And we feel that he is 
too great. 

It has been already said that the great proconsular 
wolf was not long in hearing that a lamb had come 
down to drink of his stream. The Ilelvetii, or Swiss, 
as we call them, — those tribes which lived on the Lake 
Leman, and among the hills and valleys to the north 



THE EMIGRATION OF THE HELVETIL 35 

of the lake, — liad made up tlieir minds that they were 
inhabiting but a poor sort of country, and that they 
might considerably better themselves by leaving their 
mountains and going out into some part of Gaul, in 
which they might find themselves stronger than the 
existing tribes, and might take possession of the fat of 
the land. In doing so, their easiest way out of their 
own country would lie by the Rhone, where it now 
runs through Geneva into France. But in taking this 
route the Swiss would be obliged to pass over a corner 
of the Eoman province. Here was a case of the lamb 
troubling the waters with a vengeance. When this 
was told to Caesar, — that these Swiss intended, " facere 
iter per Provinciam nostram " — " to do their travelling 
through our Province," — he hurried over the Alps into 
Gaul, and came to Geneva as fast as he could travel. 

He begins his first book by a geographical definition 
of Gaul, which no doubt was hardly accurate, but 
which gives us a singularly clear idea of that which 
Caesar desired to convey. In speaking of Gallia he 
intends to signify the whole country from the outflow 
of the Rhine into the ocean down to the Pyrenees, 
and then eastward to the Rhone, to the Swiss moun- 
tains, and the borders of the Roman Province. This 
he divides into three parts, telling us that the Belgians 
inhabited the part north of the Seine and Marne, the 
people of Aquitania the part south of the Garonne, and 
the Gauls or Celts the intermediate territory. Having 
so far described the scene of his action, he rushes off 
at once to the dreadful sin of the Swiss emigrants in 
desiring to pass through *' our Province." 



36 THE WAR IN GAUL,— FIRST BOOR, 

He has Lut one legion in Further Gaul, — that is, 
in the Eoman province on the further side of the 
Alps from Eome ; and therefore, when amhassadors 
come to him from the Swiss, asking permission to 
go through the corner of land, and promising that 
they will do no harm in their passage, he tem- 
porises with them. He can't give them an answer 
just then, but must think of it. They must come 
back to him by a certain day, — when he will have 
more soldiers ready. Of course he refuses. The 
Swiss make some sHght attempt, but soon give that 
matter up in despair. There is another way by which 
they can get out of their mountains, — through the 
territory of a people called Sequani ; and for doing this 
they obtain leave. Eut Caesar knows how injurious 
the Swiss lambs will be to him and his wolves, should 
they succeed in getting round to the back of his Pro- 
vince, — that Eoman Province which left the name of 
Provence in modern France till France refused to be 
divided any longer into provinces. And he is, more- 
over, invited by certain friends of the Eoman Eepublic, 
called the ^dui, to come and stop these rough Swiss 
travellers. He is always willing to help the -^dui, 
although these ^dui are a fickle, inconstant people, — 
and he is, above all things, willing to get to war. So 
he comes upon the rear of the Swiss when three 
portions of the people have passed the river Arar 
(Saone), and one portion is still behind. This hinder- 
most tribe, — for the wretches were all of one tribe or 
mountain canton, — he sets upon and utterly destroys ; 
and on this occasion congratulates himself on having 



THE EMIGRATION OF THE HELVETIL 37 

avenged himself upon the slayers of the grandfather 
of his father-in-law. 

There can be nothing more remarkable in history 
than this story of the attempted emigration of the 
Helvetii, which Caesar tells ns without the expression 
of any wonder. The whole people made up their 
minds that, as their borders were narrow, their num- 
bers increasing, and their courage good, they would go 
forth, — men, women, and children, — and seek other 
homes. We read constantly of the emigrations of 
people, — of the I^orthmen from the north covering the 
southern plains, of Danes and Jutes entering Britain, 
of men from Scandinavia coming down across the 
Ehine, and the like. We know that after this fashion 
the world has become peopled. Eut we picture to 
ourselves generally a concourse of warriors going forth 
and leaving behind them homes and friends, to whom 
they may or may not return. With these Swiss 
wanderers there was to be no return. All that they 
could not take with them they destroyed, burning 
their houses, and burning even their corn, so that 
there should be no means of turning their steps back- 
ward. They do make considerable progress, getting 
as far into France as Autun, — three-fourths of them 
at least getting so far ; but near this they are brought 
to an engagement by Caesar, who outgenerals them 
on a hill. The prestige of the Eomans had not as yet 
established itself in these parts, and the Swiss nearly 
have the best of it. Caesar owns, as he does not own 
again above once or twice, that the battle between 
them was very long, and for long very doubtful. But 



38 THE WAR IN GAUL.— FIRST BOOK, 

at last the poor Helvetii are driven in slaughter. 
Caesar,' however, is not content that they should 
simply fly. He forces them back upon their old 
territory, — upon their burnt houses and devastated 
fields, — lest certain Germans should come and live 
there, and make themselves disagreeable. And they 
go back; — so many, at least, go back as are not slain in 
the adventure. With great attempt at accuracy, Ciesar 
tells us that 368,000 human beings went out on the 
expedition, and that 110,000, or less than a third, 
found their w^ay back. Of those that perished, many 
hecatombs had been offered up to the shade of his 
father-in-law's grandfath er. 

Hereupon the Gauls begin to see how great a man 
is Caesar. He tells us that no sooner was that war 
with the Swiss finished than nearly all the tribes of 
Gallia send to congratulate him. And one special 
tribe, those ^dui, — of whom we hear a great deal, 
and whom we never like because they are thoroughly 
anti-Gallican in all their doings till they think that 
Csesar is really in trouble, and then they turn upon 
him, — have to beg of him a great favour. Two tribes, 
— the ^dui, whose name seems to have left no trace 
in France, and the Arverni, whom we still know in 
Auvergne, — have been long contending for the upper 
hand; whereupon the Arverni and their friends the 
Sequani have called in the assistance of certain Ger- 
mans from across the Ehine. It went badly then 
with the ^dui. And now one of their kings, named 
Divitiacus, implores the help of Csesar. Would Caesar 
be kind enough to expel these horrid Germans, and 



ARID VIST us AND BIS GERMANS. 39 

get back the hostages, and free them from a burden- 
some dominion, and put things a little to rights 1 
And, indeed, not only were the ^dui suffering from 
these Germans, and their king, Ariovistus ; it is going 
still worse with the Sequani, who had called them in. 
In fact, Ariovistus was an intolerable nuisance to that 
eastern portion of Gaul. Would Caesar be kind 
enough to drive him out 1 Caesar consents, and then 
we are made to think of another little fable, — of the 
prayer which the horse made to the man for assistance 
in his contest with the stag, and of the manner in 
which the man got upon the horse, and never got 
down again. Caesar was not slow to mount, and when 
once in the saddle, certainly did not mean to leave it. 
Caesar tells us his reasons for undertaking this com- 
mission. The ^^dui had often been called ^' brothers '' 
and " cousins " by the Eoman Senate ; and it was not 
fitting that men who had been so honoured should be 
domineered over by Germans. And then, unless these 
marauding Germans could be stopped, they would fall 
into the habit of coming across the Rhine, and at 
last might get into the Province, and by that route 
into Italy itself. And Ariovistus himself was per- 
sonally so arrogant a man that the thing must be made 
to cease. So Caesar sends ambassadors to Ariovistus, 
and invites the barbarian to a meeting. The barbarian 
will not come to the meeting. If he wanted to see 
the Itoman, he would go to the Roman : if the Eoman 
wants to see him, the Roman may come to him. Such 
is the reply of Ariovistus. Ambassadors pass between 
them, and there is a good deal of argument, in which 



40 THE WAR IN OAUL,— FIRST BOOK. 

the barbarian has the best of it. Caesar, with his god- 
like simplicity, scorns not to give the barbarian the 
benefit of his logic. Ariovistus reminds Caesar that 
the Romans have been in the habit of governing the 
tribes conquered by them after their fashion, with out 
interference from him, Ariovistus ; and that the Ger- 
mans claim and mean to exercise the same right. He 
goes on to say that he is willing enough to live in 
amity with the Romans ; but will Csesar be kind 
enough to remember that the Germans are a people 
unconquered in war, trained to the use of arms, 
and how hardy he might judge when he was told 
that for fourteen years they had not slept under a roof 1 
In the mean time other Gauls were complaining, and 
begging for assistance. The Treviri, people of the 
country where Treves now stands, are being harassed 
by the terrible yellow-haired Suevi, who at this time 
seem to have possessed nearly the whole of Prussia as 
it now exists on the further side of the Rhine, and 
who had the same desire to come westward that the 
Prussians have evinced since. And a people called 
the Harudes, from the Danube, are also harassing 
the poor ^dui. Caesar, looking at these things, sees 
that unless he is quick, the northern and southern 
Germans may join their forces. He gets together his 
commissariat, and flies at Ariovistus very quickly. 

Throughout all his campaigns, Caesar, as did !N'apo- 
leon afterwards, effected everything by celerity. He 
preaches to us no sermon on the subject, favours us 
with no disquisition as to the value of despatch in war, 
but constantly tells us that he moved aU his army 



ARIOVISTUS AND HIS GERMANS. 41 

"magnis itineribns" — by very rapid inarches; tliat he 
went on with his work night and day, and took pre- 
cautions ''magno opere," — with much labour and all 
his care,— to be beforehand with the enemy. In this 
instance Ariovistus tries to reach a certain town of the 
poor Sequani, then called Yesontio, now known to us 
as Besangon, — the same name, but very much altered. 
It consisted of a hill, or natural fortress, almost sur- 
rounded by a river, or natural fosse. There is nothing, 
says Caesar, so useful in a war as the possession of a 
place thus naturally strong. Therefore he hurries on 
and gets before Ariovistus, and occupies the town. 
The reader already begins to feel that Caesar is des- 
tined to divine success. The reader indeed knows 
that beforehand, and expects nothing worse for Caesar 
than hairbreadth escapes. But the Eomans them 
selves had not as yet the same confidence in him. 
Tidings are brought to him at Yesontio that his men 
are terribly afraid of the Germans. And so, no doubt, 
they were. These Eomans, though by the art of w'ar 
they had been made fine soldiers, — though they had 
been trained in the Eastern conquests and the Punic 
wars, and invasions of all nations around them, — were 
nevertheless, up to this day, greatly afraid even of the 
Gauls. The coming of the Gauls into Italy had been 
a source of terror to them ever since the days of 
Brennus. And the Germans were worse than the 
Gauls. The boast made by Ariovistus that his men 
never slept beneath a roof was not vain or useless. 
They were a horrid, hirsute, yellow-haired people, the 
flashing aspect of whose eyes could hardly be endured 



42 THE WAR IN GAUL.— FIRST BOOK. 

by an Italian. The fear is so great that the soldiers 
''sometimes could not refrain even from tears;" — 
" neque interdum lacrimas tenere poterant." When 
we remember what these men became after they had 
been a while with Csesar, their blubbering awe of the 
Germans strikes us as almost comic. And we are re- 
minded that the Italians of those days were, as they are 
now, more prone to show the outward signs of emotion 
than is thought to be decorous with men in more northern 
climes. We can hardly realise the idea of soldiers cry- 
ing from fear. Csesar is told by his centurions that so 
great is this feeling, that the men will probably refuse 
to take up their arms when called upon to go out and 
fight ; whereupon he makes a speech to all his cap- 
tains and lieutenants, full of boasting, full of scorn, full, 
no doubt, of falsehood, but using a bit of truth when- 
ever the truth could aid him. We know that among 
other great gifts Caesar had the gift of persuasion. 
From his tongue, also, as from Xestor's, could flow 
" Avords sweeter than honey," — or sharper than steel. At 
any rate, if others will not follow him, his tenth legion, 
he knows, will be true to him. He will go forth with 
that one legion, — ;if necessary, with that legion of true 
soldiers, and with no others. Though he had been at 
his work but a short time, he already had his picked 
men, his guards, his favourite regiments, his tenth 
legion : and he knew well how to use their superiority 
and valour for the creation of those virtues in others. 

Then Ariovistus sends ambassadors, and declares 
that he now is willing to meet Caesar. Let them meet 
on a certain plain, each bringing only his cavalry 



ARIOVISTUS AND HIS GERMANS. 43 

guard. Ariovistus suggests that foot- soldiers miglit 
Le dangerous, knowing that Caesar's foot-soldiers would 
be Eomans, and that his cavalry are Gauls. Caesar 
agrees, but takes men out of his own tenth legion, 
mounted on the horses of the less-trusted allies. The 
accounts of these meetings, and the arguments which 
we are told are used on this and that side, are v^ry 
interesting. We are bound to remember that Caesar 
is telling the story for both sides, but we feel that he 
tries to tell it fairly. Ariovistus had very little to say 
to Caesar's demands, but a great deal to say about his 
own exploits. The meeting, however, was broken up 
by an attack made by the Germans on Caesar's mounted 
guard, and Caesar retires, — not, however, before he 
has explained to Ariovistus his grand idea of the pro- 
tection due by Rome to her allies. Then Ariovistus 
proposes another meeting, which Caesar declines to 
attend, sending, however, certain ambassadors. Ario- 
vistus at once throws the ambassadors into chains, and 
then there is nothing for it but a fight. 

The details of all these battles cannot be given 
within our short limits, and there is nothing special 
in this battle to tempt us to dwell upon it. Caesar 
describes to us the way in which the German cavalry 
and infantry fought together, the footmen advancing 
from amidst the horsemen, and then returning for 
protection. His own men fight well, and the Ger- 
mans, in spite of their flashing eyes, are driven head- 
long in a rout back to the Ehine. Ariovistus succeeds 
in getting over the river and saving himself, but he 
has to leave his two daughters behind, and his two 



4:4 THE WAR IN OAUL.— FIRST BOOK, 

wives. The two wives and one of the daughters are 
killed ; the other daughter is taken prisoner. Caesar had 
sent as one of his ambassadors to the German a certain 
dear friend of his, who, as we heard before, was, with 
his comrade, at once subjected to chains. In the flight 
this ambassador is recovered. " Which thing, indeed, 
gave Caesar not less satisfaction than the victory itself, 
— in that he saw one of the honestest men of the Pro- 
vince of Gaul, his own familiar friend and guest, 
rescued from the hands of his enemies and restored to 
him. JSTor did Fortune diminish this gratification by 
any calamity inflicted on the man. Thrice, as he him- 
self told the tale, had it been decided by lot in his 
own presence whether he should then be burned alive 
or reserved for another time." So Caesar tells the story, 
and we like him for his enthusiasm, and are glad to hear 
that the comrade ambassador also is brought back. 

The yellow-haired Suevi, when they hear of all 
this, desist from their invasion on the lower Rhine, 
and hurry back into their own country, not without 
misfortunes on the road. So great already is Caesar's 
name, that tribes, acting as it were on his side, dare to 
attack even the Suevi. Then, in his ''Yeni, vidi, 
vici" style, he tells us that, having in one summer 
finished ofi" two wars, he is able to put his army into 
winter quarters even before the necessary time, so that 
he himself may go into his other Gaul across the Alps, 
— " ad conventus agendos," — to hold some kind of 
session or assizes for the government of his province, 
and especiall}^ to collect more soldiers. 



CHAPTEE III. 

SECOND BOOK OF THE WAR IK GAUL. — CJilSAR SUBDTTES 
THE BELGIAN TRIBES. — B.C. hi. 

The man had got on tlie horse's back, but the horse had 
various disagreeable enemies in attacking whom the 
man might be very useful, and the horse was therefore 
not as yet anxious to unseat his rider. Would CiBsar 
be so good as to go and conquer the Belgian tribes'? 
Caesar is not slow in finding reasons for so doing. 
The Belgians are conspiring together against him. 
They think that as all Gaul has been reduced, — or 
'Opacified," as Caesar calls it, — the Eoman conqueror will 
certainly bring his valour to bear upon them, and that 
they had better be ready. Caesar suggests that it 
would no doubt be felt by them as a great grievance 
that a Roman army should remain all the winter so 
near to them. In this way, and governed by these 
considerations, tlie Belgian lambs disturb the stream 
very sadly, and the wolf has to look to it. He collects 
two more legions, and, as soon as the earth brings 
forth the food necessary for his increased number of 
men and horses, he hurries off against these Belgian 
tribes of Northern Gallia. Of these, one tribe, the 



46 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SECOND BOOK, 

Remi, immediately send word to him that they are 
not wicked lambs like the others ; they have not 
touched the waters. All the other Belgians, say the 
Eemi, and with them a parcel of Germans, are in a con- 
spiracy together. Even their very next-door neighbours, 
their brothers and cousins, the Suessiones, are wicked ; 
but they, the Remi, have steadily refused even to sniff 
at the stream, which they acknowledge to be the 
exclusive property of the good wolf. Would the wolf 
be kind enough to come and take possession of them 
and all their belongings, and allow them to be the 
humblest of his friends 1 "We come to hate these Remi, 
as we do the ^dui ; but they are wise in their genera- 
tion, and escape much of the starvation and massa- 
cring and utter ruin to which the other tribes are sub- 
jected. Among almost all these so-called Belgian tribes 
we find the modern names which are familiar to us. 
Rheims is in the old country of the Remi, Soissons in 
that of the Suessiones. Beauvais represents the Bel- 
lovaci, Amiens the Ambiani, Arras the Atrebates, 
Treves the Treviri, — as has been pointed out before. 
Silva Arduenna is, of course, the Forest of Ardennes. 

The campaign is commenced by an attack made by the 
other Belgians on those unnatural Remi who have gone 
over to the Romans. There is a town of theirs, Bibrax, 
now known, or rather not known, as Bievre, and here 
the Remi are besieged by their brethren. When 
Bibrax is on the point of falling, — and we can imagine 
what would then have been the condition of the towns- 
men, — they send to Caesar, who is only eight miles 
distant. Unless Caesar will help, they cannot endure 



CJSSAR REDUCES THE BELGIAN TRIBES. 47 

any longer such onslaugM as is made on tbein. Caesar, 
having bided his time, of course sends help, and the 
poor besieging Belgians fall into inextricable confusion. 
They agree to go home, each to his own country, and 
from thence to proceed to the defence of any tribe 
which Caesar might attack. '^ So," says Caesar, as he 
ends the story of this little affair, '^ without any danger 
on our part, our men killed as great a number of theirs 
as the space of the day would admit." When the sun 
set, and not till then, came an end to the killing, — 
such having been the order of Caesar. 

That these Belgians had really formed any intention 
of attacking the Eoman province, or even any Roman 
ally, there is no other proof than that Caesar tells us 
that they had all conspired. But whatever might be 
their sin, or what the lack of sin on their part, he is 
determined to go on with the war till he has subju- 
gated them altogether. On the very next day he 
attacks the Suessiones, and gets as far as ]Sroviodunum, 
— N'oyons. The people there, when they see how ter- 
rible are his engines of war, give up all idea of defend- 
ing themselves, and ask for terms. The Bellovaci do 
the same. At the instigation of his friends the Eemi, 
he spares the one city, and, to please the ^dui, the 
other. But he takes away all their arms, and exacts 
hostages. From the Bellovaci, because they have a 
name as a powerful people, he takes 600 hostages. 
Throughout all these wars it becomes a matter of 
wonder to us what Caesar did with all these hostages, 
and how he maintained them. It was, however, no 
doubt clearly understood that they would be killed if 



48 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SECOND BOOK, 

the town, or state, or tribe by which they were given 
should misbehave, or in any way thwart the great 
conqueror. 

The Ambiani come next, and the ancestors of our 
intimate friends at Amiens soon give themselves up. 
The next to them are the [N'ervii, a people far away to 
the north, where Lille now is and a considerable por- 
tion of Flanders. Of these Caesar had heard wonder- 
ful travellers' tales. They were a people who admitted 
no dealers among them, being in this respect very un- 
like their descendants, the Belgians of to-day ; they 
drank no wine, and indulged in no luxuries, lest their 
martial valour should be diminished. They send no 
ambassadors to Caesar, and resolve to hold their own 
if they can. They trust solely to infantry in battle, 
and know nothing of horses. Against the cavalry of 
other nations, however, they are wont to protect them- 
selves by artificial hedges, which they make almost 
as strong as walls. 

Caesar in attacking the [NTervii had eight legions, and 
he tells us how he advanced against them " consuetu- 
dine sua," — after his usual fashion. For some false in- 
formation had been given to the N"ervii on this subject, 
which brought them into considerable trouble. He 
sent on first his cavalry, then six legions, the legions 
consisting solely of foot-s^^liers ; after these all the 
baggage, commissariat, and burden of the army, com- 
prising the materials necessary for sieges ; and lastly, 
the two other legions, which had been latest enrolled. 
It may be as well to explain here that the legion in the 
time of Caesar consisted on paper of six thousand heavy- 



CJSSAR REDUCES THE BELGIAN TRIBES. 49 

armed foot-soldiers. There were ten cohorts in a legion, 
and six centuries, or six hundred men, in each cohort. 
It may possibly be that, as with our regiments, the 
numbers were frequently not full. Eight full legions 
would thus have formed an army consisting of 48,000 
infantry. The exact number of men under his orders 
Caesar does not mention here or elsewhere. 

According to his own showing, Caesar is hurried into 
a battle before he knows where he is. Caesar, he says, 
had everything to do himself, all at the same time, — 
to unfurl the standard of battle, to give the signal with 
the trumpet, to get back the soldiers from their work, 
to call back some who had gone to a distance for stuff 
to make a rampart, to draw up the army, to address the 
men, and then to give the word. In that matter of 
oratory, he only tells them to remember their old 
valour. The enemy was so close upon them, and so 
ready for fighting, that they could scarcely put on their 
helmets and take their shields out of their cases. So 
great was the confusion that tlie soldiers could not get 
to their own ranks, but had to fight as they stood, 
under any flag that was nearest to them. There were 
so many things against them, and especially those tliick 
artificial hedges, which prevented them even from see- 
ing, that it was impossible for them to flight according 
to any method, and in consequence there were vicissi- 
tudes of fortune. One is driven to feel that on this 
occasion Csesar was caught napping. The I^ervii did 
at times and places seem to be getting the best of it. 
The ninth and tenth legions pursue one tribe into a river, 
and then they have to fight them again, and drive them 

A. c. vol. iv. D 



50 THE WAR IN GAUL.SECOND BOOK. 

out of the river. The eleventh and eighth, having put to 
flight another tribe, are attacked on the very river-banks. 
The twelfth and the seventh have their hands equally 
full, when Boduognatus, the ISTervian chief, makes his 
way into the very middle of the Eoman camp. So 
great is the confusion that the Treviri, who had joined 
Csesar on this occasion as allies, although reputed the 
bravest of the cavalry of Gaul, run away home, and 
declare that the Komans are conquered. Csesar, how- 
ever, comes to the rescue, and saves his army on this 
occasion by personal prowess. When he saw how it 
was going, — "rem esse in angusto," — how the thing 
had got itself into the very narrowest neck of a diffi- 
culty, he seizes a shield from a common soldier, — having 
come there himself with no shield, — and rushes into the 
fight. When the soldiers saw him, and saw, too, that 
what they did was done in his sight, they fought anew, 
and the onslaught of the enemy was checked. 

Perhaps readers will wish that they could know how 
much of all this is exactly true. It reads as though it 
were true. We cannot in these days understand how 
one brave man at such a moment should be so much 
more effective than another, how he should be known 
personally to the soldiers of an army so large, how Caesar 
should have known the names of the centurions, — for he 
tells us that he addresses them by name ; — and yet it 
reads like truth; and the reader feels that as Caesar 
would hardly condescend to boast, so neither would he 
be constrained by any modern feeling of humility from 
telling any truth of himself. It is as though Minerva 
were to tell us of some descent which she made 



C^SAR REDUCES THE BELGIAN TRIBES. 51 

among the Trojans. The I^ervii fight on, but of course 
they are driven in flight. The nation is all but de- 
stroyed, so that the very name can but hardly remain ; 
— so at least we are told here, though we hear of them 
again as a tribe by no means destroyed or powerless. 
AYhen out of six hundred senators there are but three 
senators left, when from sixty thousand fighting men 
the army has been reduced to scarcely five himdred, 
Caesar throws the mantle of his mercy over the sur- 
vivors. He allows them even to go and live in their 
own homes, and forbids their neighbours to harass 
them. There can "Be no doubt that Caesar nearly got 
the worst of it in this struggle, and we may surmise 
that he learned a lesson which was of service to him 
in subsequent campaigns. 

But there are still certain Aduatici to be disposed 
of before the summer is over, — people who had helped 
the Nervii, — who have a city of their own, and who 
live somewhere in the present [N'amur district.'^ At 
first they fight a little round the walls of their town ; 
but when they see what terrible instruments Caesar 

* These people were the descendants of those Cimbri who, half 
a century before, had caused such woe to Eonie ! The Cimbri, we 
are told, had gone forth from their lands, and had been six times 
victorious over Roman armies, taking possession of " our Pro- 
vince," and threatening Italy and Rome. The whole empire of 
the Republic had been in danger, but was at last saved by the 
courage, skill, and rapidity of Marius. In going forth from 
their country they had left a remnant behind with such of their 
possessions as they could not carry with them ; and these 
Aduatici were the children and grandchildren of that remnant. 
Caesar doubtless remembered it all. 



52 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SECOND BOOK. 

has, by means of which to get at them over their very- 
walls, — how he can build up a great turret at a distance, 
which, at that distance, is ludicrous to them, but which 
he brings near to them, so that it overhangs thera, from 
which to harass them with arrows and stones, and 
against which, so high is it, they have no defence — 
then they send out and beg for mercy. Surely, they 
say, Csesar and the Romans must have more than 
human power. They will give up everything, if only 
Caesar out of his mercy will leave to them their arms. 
They are always at war with all their neighbours ; and 
where would they be without arms 1 

Caesar replies. Merits of their own they have none. 
How could a tribe have merits against whicL Caesar 
was at war] ]N"evertheless, such being his custom, he 
will admit them to some terms of grace if they sur- 
render before his battering - ram has touched their 
walls. But as for their arms, surely they must be 
joking with him. Of course their arms must be sur- 
rendered. What he had done for the IN'ervii he would 
do for them. He would tell their neighbours not to 
hurt them. They agree, and throw their arms into the 
outside ditch of the town, but not quite all their arms. 
A part, — a third, — are cunningly kept back ; and when 
Caesar enters the town, they who have kept their arms, 
and others unarmed, try to escape from the town. They 
fight, and some thousands are slain. Others are driven 
back, and these are sold for slaves. Who, we wonder, 
could have been the purchasers, and at what price on 
that day was a man to be bought in the city of the 
Aduatici 1 



CjESAR reduces the BELGIAN TRIBES, 53 

Then Caesar learns through his lieutenant, young 
Crassus, the son of his colleague in the triumvirate, that 
all the Belgian states, from the Scheldt to the Bay of 
Biscay, have been reduced beneath the yoke of the 
Eoman people. The Germans, too, send ambassadors 
to him, so convinced are they that to fight against him 
is of no avail, — so wonderful an idea of this last war 
has pervaded all the tribes of barbarians. But Csesar 
is in a hurry, and can hear no ambassadors now. He 
wants to get into Italy, and they must come again to 
him next summer. 

For all which glorious doings a public thanksgiving 
of fifteen days is decreed, as soon as the news is heard 
in Eome. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THIRD BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL.— CiESAR SUBDUES 
THE WESTERN TRIBES OF GAUL B.C. 56, 

In the first few lines of the third book we learn that 
Caesar had an eye not only for conquest, hut for the 
advantages of conquest also. When he went into 
Italy at the end of the last campaign, he sent one 
Galba, whose descendant became emperor after j^ero, 
with the twelfth legion, to take up his winter quarters 
in the upper valley of the Rhone, in order that an 
easier traffic might be opened to traders passing over 
the Alps in and out of Northern Italy. It seems that 
the passage used was that of the Great St Bernard, and 
Galba placed himself with his legion at that junction 
of the valley which we all know so well as Martigny. 
Here, however, he was attacked furiously in his camp 
by the inhabitants of the valley, w^ho probably objected 
to being dictated to as to the amount of toll to be 
charged upon the travelling traders, and was very nearly 
destroyed. The Eomans, however, at last, when they 
had neither weapons nor food left for maintaining their 
camp, resolved to cut their way through their enemies. 
This they did so effectually that they slaughtered more 



C^SAR MAKES LITTLE OF DIFFICULTIES. 55 

than ten thousand men, and the other twenty thou- 
sand of Swiss warriors all took to flight ! iN'evertheless 
Galba thought it as well to leave that inhospitable 
region, in which it was almost impossible to find food 
for the winter, and took himself down the valley and 
along the lake to the Eoman Province. He made his 
winter-quarters among the Allobroges, who belonged to 
the Province, — a people living just south of the present 
Lyons. How the Allobroges liked it we are not told, 
but we know that they were then very faithful, al- 
though in former days they had given great trouble. 
Their position made faith to Rome almost a necessity. 
Whether, in such a position, Caesar's lieutenants paid 
their way, and bought their corn at market price, we 
do not know. It was Caesar's rule, no doubt, to make 
the country on which his army stood support his army. 
When the number of men whom Caesar took with 
him into countries hitherto unknown to him or his 
army is considered, and the apparently reckless au- 
dacity with which he did so, it must be acknowledged 
that he himself says very little about his difficulties. 
He must constantly have had armies for which to 
provide twice as large as our Crimean army, — probably 
as large as the united force of the English and French 
in the Crimea ; and he certainly could not bring with 
him what he wanted in ships. The road from Bala- 
clava up to the heights over Sebastopol, we know, was 
very bad ; but it was short. The road from the foot of 
the Alps in the Roman province to the countries with 
which we were dealing in the last cliapter could not, 
we should say, have been very good two thousand 



56 THE WAR IN GAUL.— THIRD BOOK, 

years ago, and it certainly was very long ; — nearly a 
hundred miles for Caesar to every single one of those 
that were so terrible to us in the Crimea. Caesar, 
however, carried hut little with him beyond his arms 
and implements of war, and of those the heaviest he 
no doubt made as he went. The men had an allow- 
ance of corn per day, besides so much pay. We are 
told that the pay before Caesar's time was 100 asses 
a-month for the legionaries, — the as being less than a 
penny, — and that this was doubled by Caesar. We 
can conceive that the money troubled him compara- 
tively slightly, but that the finding of the daily corn and 
forage for so large a host of men and horses must have 
been very difficult. He speaks of the difficulty often, 
but never with that despair which was felt as to the 
roasting of our coffee in the Crimea. We hear of his 
waiting till forage should have grown, and sometimes 
there are necessary considerations '* de re frumentaria," 
— about that great general question of provisions ; but 
of crushing difficulties very little is said, and of bad 
roads not a word. One great advantage Caesar certainly 
had over Lord Eaglan ; — he was his own special cor- 
respondent. Coffee his men certainly did not get; but 
if their corn were not properly roasted for them, and if, 
as would be natural, the men grumbled, he had with 
him no licensed collector of grumbles to make public 
the sufferings of his men. 

And now, when this affair of Galba's had been 
finished, — when Caesar, as he telis us, really did think 
that all Gaul was *' pacatam," tranquillised, or at least 
subdued, — the Belgians conquered, the Germans driven 



CuESAR SUBDUES THE WESTERiV TRIBES, 57 

oflf, those Swiss fellows cut to pieces in the valley of 
the Rhone ; when he thought that he might make a 
short visit into that other province of his, lllyricum, 
so that he might see what that was lilce, — he is told 
that another war has sprung up in Gaul ! Young 
Crassus, with that necessity which of course was on him 
of providing winter food for the seventh legion which 
he had been ordered to take into Aquitania, has been 
obliged to send out for corn into the neighbouring 
countries. Of course a well-instructed young general, 
such as was Crassus, had taken hostages before he sent 
his men out among strange and wild barbarians. But 
in spite of that, the Yeneti, a maritime people of an- 
cient Brittany, just in that country of the Morbihan 
whither we now go to visit the works of the Druids at 
Carnac and Locmariaker, absolutely detained his two 
ambassadors ; — so called afterwards, though in his first 
mention of them Caesar names them as praefects and 
tribunes of the soldiers. Yannes, the capital of the 
department of the Morbihan, gives us a trace of the 
name of this tribe. The Yeneti, who were powerful 
in ships, did not see why they should give their corn 
to Crassus. Caesar, when he hears that ambassadors, 
— sacred ambassadors, — have been stopped, is filled 
with shame and indignation, and hurries ofi" himself to 
look after the afi'air, having, as we may imagine, been 
able to see very little of lllyricum. 

This horror of Caesar in regard to his ambassadors, — 
in speaking of which he alludes to what the Gauls 
themselves felt when they came to understand what a 
thing they had done in making ambassadors prisoners, 



58 THE WAR IN GAUL.— THIRD BOOK. 

— ^' legates," — a name that has always been held sacred 
and inviolate among all nations, — is very great, and 
makes him feel that he must really be in earnest. We 
are reminded of the injunctions, printed in Spanish, 
which the Spaniards distributed among the Indians of 
the continent, in the countries now called Venezuela 
and JN'ew Granada, explaining to the people, who knew 
nothing of Spanish or of printing, how they were 
bound to obey the orders of a distant king, who had 
the authority of a more distant Pope, who again, — so 
they claimed, — was delegated by a more distant God. 
The pain of history consists in the injustice of the 
wolf towards the lamb, joined to the conviction that 
thus, and no otherwise, could the lamb be brought to 
better than a sheepish mode of existence ! But Csesar 
was in earnest.'^ The following is a translation of the 
tenth section of this book ; " There were these diffi- 
culties in carrying on the war which we have above 
shown." — He alludes to the maritime capacities of the 
people whom he desires to conquer. — " Many things, 
nevertheless, urged Caesar on to this war; — the wrongs 
of those Eoman knights who had been detained, rebel- 
lion set on foot after an agreed surrender," — that any 

* And Caesar was no doubt indignant as well as earnest, 
though, perhaps, irrational in his indignation. We know how 
sacred was held to be the person of the Eoman citizen, and 
remember Cicero's patriotic declaration, *' Facinns est vinciri 
civem Eomanum, — scelus verberari ; " and again, the words 
which Horace puts into the mouth of Regulus when he asserts 
that the Roman soldier must be lost for ever in his shame, and 
useless, **Qui lora restrictis lacertis Sensit iners timuitque 
mortem." 



CJSSAR SUBDUES THE WESTERN TRIBES. 59 

such surrender had been made we do not hear, though 
we do hear, incidentally, that Crassus had taken hos- 
tages ; — '^ a falling off from alliance after hostages had 
been given ; conspiracy among so many tribes ; and 
then this first consideration, that if this side of the 
country were disregarded, the other tribes might learn 
to think that they might take the same liberty. Then, 
when he bethought himself that, as the Gauls were 
prone to rebellion, and were quickly and easily excited 
to war, and that all men, moreover, are fond of liberty 
and hate a condition of subjection, he resolved that it 
would be well, rather than that other states should 
conspire, '^ — and to avoid the outbreak on behalf of free- 
dom which might thus ^probably be made, — *' that his 
army should be divided, and scattered about more 
widely." Treating all Gaul as a chess-board, he sends 
round to provide that the Treviri should be kept quiet. 
Readers will remember how far Treves is distant from 
the extremities of Brittany. The Belgians are to be 
looked to, lest they should rise and come and help. 
The Germans are to be prevented from crossing the 
Eliine. Labienus, who, during the Gallic wars, was 
Caesar's general highest in trust, is to see to all this. 
Crassus is to go back into Aquitania and keep the south 
quiet. Titurius Sabinus, destined afterwards to a sad 
end, is sent with three legions, — eighteen thousand men, 
— among the neighbouring tribes of iTorthern Brittany 
and [N'ormandy. '* Young" Decimus Brutus, — Caesar 
speaks of him with that kind affection which the epithet 
conveys, and we remember, as we read, that this Brutus 
appears afterwards in history as one of Caesar's slayers, 



60 THE WAR IIV OAUL,— THIRD BOOK, 

in conjunction witli his greater namesake, — yonng De- 
cimus Brutus, tlie future conspirator in Eome, has con- 
fided to him the fleet whicli is to destroy these much 
less guilty distant conspirators, and Caesar himself takes 
the command of his own legions on the spot. All this 
is told in fewer words than are here used in descrihing 
the telling, and the reader feels that he has to do with a 
mighty man, whose eyes are everywhere, and of whom 
an ordinary enemy would certainly say, Surely this is 
no man, but a god. 

He tells us how great was the effect of his own 
presence on the shore, though the battle was carried 
on under young Brutus at sea. '' What remained of 
the conflict," he says, after desofibing their manoeuvres, 
'' depended on valour, in which our men were far away 
the superior ; and this was more especially true be- 
cause the affair was carried on so plainly in the sight 
of Caesar and the whole army that no brave deed could 
pass unobserved. For all the hills and upper lands, 
from whence the view down upon the sea was close, 
were covered by the army." 

Of course he conquers the Yeneti and other sea-going 
tribes, even on their own element. Whereupon they 
give themselves and all their belongings up to Caesar. 
Caesar, desirous that the rights of ambassadors shall 
hereafter be better respected among barbarians, deter- 
mines that he must use a little severity. " Gravius 
vindicandum statuit ; '' — " he resolved that the offence 
should be expiated with more than ordinary punish- 
meni ." Consequently, he kills all the senate, and sells 
all the other men as slaves ! The pithy brevity, the 



CjESar subdues the western- tribes. 61 

unapologetic dignity of the sentence, as he pronounced 
it and tells it to us, is heartrending, but, at this dis- 
tance of time, delightful also. " Itaque, omni senatu 
necato, reliquos sub corona vendiditj" — *' therefore, 
all the senate having been slaughtered, he sold the 
other citizens with chaplets on their heads ; " — it being 
the Eoman custom so to mark captives in war intended 
for sale. We can see him as he waves his hand and 
passes on. Surely he must be a god ! 

His generals in this campaign are equally successful. 
One Yiridovix, a Gaul up in the jN"orniandy country, — 
somewhere about Avranches or St Lo, we may imagine, 
— is entrapped into a fight, and destroyed with his 
army, Aquitania surrenders herself to Crassus, after 
much fighting, and gives up her arms. 

Then Caesar reflects that the Morini and the Menapii 
had as yet never bowed their heads to him. Boulogne 
and Calais stand in the now well-known territory of 
the Morini, but the Menapii lie a long way off, up 
among the mouths of the Sclieldt and the Ehine, — the 
Low Countries of modern history, — an uncomfortable 
people then, who would rush into their woods and 
marshes after a spell of fighting, and who seemed to 
have no particular homes or cities that could be at- 
tacked or destroyed. It was nearly the end of summer 
just now, and the distance between, let us say, Vannes 
in Brittany, and Breda, or even Antwerp, seems to us 
to be considerable, when we remember the condition of 
the country, and the size of Caesar's army. But he had 
a few weeks to fill up, and then he might feel that all 
Gaul had been " pacified." At present there was this 



62 THE WAR IN GAUL.— THIRD BOOK. 

haughty little northern corner. '' Omni GalliS, pacat^t, 
Morini Menapiique supererant ; " — " all Gaul having 
been pacified, the Morini and Menapii remained." He 
was, moreover, no doubt beginning to reflect that from 
the Morini could be made the shortest journey into that 
wild Ultima Thule of an island in which lived the 
Britanni. Caesar takes advantage of the few weeks, and 
attacks these uncomfortable people. When they retreat 
into the woods, he cuts the woods doAvn. He does cut 
down an immense quantity of wood, but the enemy only 
recede into thicker and bigger woods. Bad weather 
comes on, and the soldiers can no longer endure life in 
their skin tents. Let us fancy these Italians encounter- 
ing winter in undrained Flanders, with no walls or roofs 
to protect them, and ordered to cut down interminable 
woods ! Had a 'Times' been then written and filed, in- 
stead of a "Commentary'' from the hands of the General- 
in-chief, we should probably have heard of a good deal 
of suffering. As it is, we are only told that Csesar had 
to give up his enterprise for that year. He therefore 
burned all their villages, laid waste all their fields, and 
then took his army down into a more comfortable re- 
gion south of the Seine, and there put them into winter 
quarters, — not much to the comfort of the people there 
residing. 



CHAPTER V. 

FOURTH BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL. — C^SAR CROSSES THE 
RHINE, SLAUGHTERS THE GERMANS, AND GOES INTO 
BRITAIN. — B.C. 65. 

In the next year certain Germans, TJsipetes and others, 
crossed the Ehine into Gaul, not far from the sea, as 
Caesar tells us. He tells us again, that when he drove 
the Germans back over the river, it was near the 
confluence of the Mouse and the Ehine. When we 
remember how difficult it was for Csesar to obtain 
information, we must acknowledge that his geography 
as to the passage of the Ehine out to the sea, and of 
the junction of the Ehine and the Mouse by the Waal, 
is wonderfully correct. The spot indicated as that at 
which the Germans were driven into the river would 
seem to be near Bommel in Holland, where the Waal 
and the Mouse join their waters, at the head of tlie 
island of Eommel, where Eort St Andre stands, or stood.'^ 

* Cffisar speaks of the coi^uence of the Ehine and the 
**Mosa" as the spot at which he drove the Germans into the 
river, — and in various passages, speaking of the Mosa, clearly 
means the Meuse. It appears, however, to be the opinion of 
English scholars who have studied the topography of Caesar's 



64 THE WAR IN GAUL.—FOCJRTH BOOK, 

Those wonderfal Suevi, among whom the men 
alternately fight and plough, year and year about, 
caring more, however, for cattle than they do for corn, 
who are socialists in regard to land, having no private 
property in their fields, — who, all of them, from their 
youth upwards, do just what they please, — large, bony 
men, who wear, even in these cold regions, each simply 
some s'.anty morsel of skin covering, — who bathe in rivers j 
all the year through, who deal with traders only to seir|] 
the spoils of war, who care but little for their horses, I 
and ride, when they do ride, without saddles, — think- ,' 
ing nothing of men to whom such delicate appendages \ 
are necessary, — who drink no wine, and will have no , 
neighbours near them, — these ferocious Suevi have ] 
driven other German tribes over the Ehine into Gaul, y 
Caesar, hearing this, is filled with apprehension. He r 
knows the weakness of his poor friends the Gauls, — | 
how prone they are to gossiping, of what a restless tern- | 
per. It is in the country of the Menapii, the tribe with ) 
which he did not quite finish his little afiair in the last : 
chapter, that these Germans are settling ; and there is 
no knowing what trouble the intruders may give him 
if he allows them to make themselves at home on that \ 

campaigns with much labour, that the confluence of the Moselle \ 

and Rhine, from which Coblentz derives its name, is the spot \ 

intended. Kapoleon, who has hardly made himself an autho- \ 

rity on the affairs of Caesar generally, but who is thought to be : 

an authority in regard to topography, holds to the opinion that ^ 
the site in Holland is intended to be described. Readers 
who are anxious on the subject can choose between the two ; 

but readers who are nftt anxious will probably be more numer- ' 
ous. 



CESAR DRIVES THE GERMANS OUT OF GA VL. 65 

side of the river. So lie hurries off to give help to 
the poor Menapii. 

Of course there is a sending of ambassadors. The 
Germans acknowledge that they have been turned out 
of their own lands by their brethren, the Suevi, who 
are better men than thev are. But they profess that, 
in fighting, the Suevi, and the Suevi only, are their 
masters. ^N'ot even the immortal gods can- stand 
ao-ainst the Suevi. But thev also are Germans, and 
are not at all afraid of the Eomans. But in the pro- 
position which they make they show some little awe. 
"Will Caesar allow them to remain where they are, or allot 
to them some other region on that side of the Rhine 1 
Caesar tells them that they may go and live, if they 
please, with the Ubii, — another tribe of Germans who 
occupy the Rhine country, probably where Cologne now 
stands, or perhaps a little north of it, and who seem already 
to have been forced over the Rhine, — they, or some of 
them, — and to have made good their footing somewhere 
in the region in which Charlemagne built his church, 
now called Aix-la-Chapelle. There they are, Germans 
still, and probably are so because these Ubii made 
good their footing. The Ubii also are in trouble with 
the Suevi ; and if these intruders will go and join the 
Ubii, Caesar will make it all straight for them. The 
intruders hesitate, but do not go, and at last attack 
Caesar's cavalry, not without some success. During 
this fight there is double treachery, — first on the part 
of the Germans, and then on Caesar's part, — which is 
chiefly memorable for the attack made on Caesar in 
Rome. It was in consequence of the deceit here 

A. c. vol. iy. s 



66 THE WAR IN OAVL.— FOURTH BOOK. 

practised that it was proposed by his enemies in the 
city that he should be given np by the Eepublic to 
the foe. Had any such decree been passed, it would 
not have been easy to give up Caesar. 

The Germans are, of course, beaten, and they are 
driven into the river on those low and then undrained 
regions in which the Rhine and the Meuse and the 
Waal confuse themselves and confuse travellers; — 
either here, or much higher up the river at Coblentz ; 
but the reader will already have settled that question 
for himself at the beginning of the chapter. Caesar 
speaks of these Germans as though they were all 
drowned, — men, women, and children. They had 
brought their entire families with them, and, when 
the fighting went against them, with their entire 
families they fled into the river. Caesar was pursuing 
them after the battle, and they precipitated themselves 
over the banks. There, overcome by fear, fatigue, and 
the waters, they perished. There was computed to 
be a hundred and eighty thousand of them who were 
destroyed ; but the Roman army was safe to a man.* 

Then Caesar made up his mind to cross the river. 
It seems that he had no intention of extending the 
empire of the Republic into what he called Germany, 
but that he thought it necessary to frighten the Ger- 
mans. The cavalry of those intruding Usipetes had, 
luckily for them, been absent, foraging over the river ; 
and he now sent to the Sigambri, among whom they 

* ** Hostium numeriis capitum CDXXX milliiim fuisset,'* 
from which words we are led to suppose that there were 180,000 
fighting men, besides the women and children. 



C^SAR DRIVES THE GERMANS OUT OF GAUL. 67 

had taken refuge, desiring that these horsemen should 
be given up to him. Eut the Sigambri will not obey. 
The Germans seem to have understood that Caesar had 
Gaul in his hands, to do as he liked with it ; but they 
grudged his interference beyond the Ehine. Caesar, 
however, always managed to have a set of friends 
among his enemies, to help him in adjusting his 
enmities. We have heard of the ^dui in central 
Gaul, and of the Eemi in the north. The Ubii were 
his German friends, who were probably at this time 
occupying both banks of the river ; and the Ubii ask 
him just to come over and frighten their neighbours. 
Caesar resolves upon gratifying them. And as it is not 
consistent either with his safety or with his dignity to 
cross the river in boats, he determines to build a bridge. 
Is there a schoolboy in England, or one who has 
been a schoolboy, at any Caesar-reading school, who 
does not remember those memorable words, ^' Tigna 
bina sesquipedalia," with which Caesar begins his 
graphic account of the building of the bridge 1 When 
the breadth of the river is considered, its rapidity, and 
the difficulty which there must have been in finding 
tools and materials for such a construction, in a country 
so wild and so remote from Eoman civilisation, the 
creation of this bridge fills us with admiration for 
Caesar's spirit and capacity. He drove down piles 
into the bed of the river, two and two, prone against 
the stream. We could do that now, though hardly as 
quickly as Caesar did it ; but we should want coffer-dams 
and steam -pumps, patent rammers, and a clerk of the 
works. He explains to us that he so built the foun- 



68 THE WAR IN GAUL.— FOURTH BOOK, 

dations that the very strength of the stream added to 
their strength and -consistency. In ten days the whole 
thing was done, and the army carried over. Caesar 
does not tell us at Avhat suffering, or with the loss of 
how many men. It is the simplicity of everything 
which is so wonderful in these Commentaries. We 
have read of works constructed hy modern armies, and 
of works which modern armies could not construct. 
We remember the road up from Balaclava, and the 
railway which was sent out from England. We know, 
too, what are the aids and appliances with which science 
has furnished us. But yet in no modern warfare do 
the difficulties seem to have been so light, so little 
worthy of mention, as they were to Caesar. He made 
his bridge and took over his army, cavalry and all, in 
ten days. There must have been difficulty and hard- 
ship, and the drowning, we should fear, of many men ; 
but CiBsar says nothing of all this. 

Ambassadors immediately are sent. From the mo- 
ment in which the bridge was begun, the Sigambri ran 
away and hid themselves in the woods. Caesar burns 
all their villages, cuts down all their corn, and travels 
down into the country of the Ubii. He comforts them; 
and tidings of his approach then reach those terrible 
Suevi. They make ready for war on a grand scale ; 
but Caesar, reflecting that he had not brought his army 
over the river for the sake of fighting the Suevi, and 
telling us that he had already done enough for honour 
and for the good of the cause, took his army back 
after eighteen days spent in the journey, and destroyed 
his bridf^e. 



CjESAR invades BRIT Am, 69 

Then comes a passage which makes a Briton vacil- 
late between shame at his own ancient insignificance, 
and anger at Caesar's misapprehension of his ancient 
character. There were left of the fighting season after 
Caesar came back across the Ehine just a few weeks ; 
and what can he do better with them than go over and 
conquer Britannia? This first record of an invasion 
upon us comes in at the fag-end of a chapter, and the 
invasion was made simply to fill up the summer ! ^o- 
body, Caesar tells us, seemed to know anything about 
the island ; and yet it was the fact that in all his wars 
with the Gauls, the Gauls were helped by men out of 
Britain. Before he will face the danger with his army 
he sends over a trusty messenger, to look about and 
find out something as to the coasts and harbours. The 
trusty messenger does not dare to disembark, but comes 
back and tells Caesar what he has seen from his ship. 
Caesar, in the mean time, has got together a great fleet 
somewhere in the Boulogne and Calais country; and, 
— so he says, — messengers have come to him from 
Britain, whither rumours of his purpose have already 
flown, saying that they will submit themselves to the 
Roman Republic. We may believe just as much of 
that as we please. But he clearly thinks less of the 
Boulogne and Calais people than he does even of the 
Britons, which is a comfort to us. When these peo- 
ple, — then called Morini, — came to him, asking pardon 
for having dared to oppose him once before, and ofler- 
ing any number of hostages, and saying that they had 
been led on by bad advice, Caesar admitted them into 
<»ome degree of grace ; not wishing, as he tells us, to be 



70 THE WAR IN GAUL,— FOURTH BOOK. 

kept out of Britain by tlie consideration of such very 
small affairs. "' ^eque has tantularum rerum occupa- 
tiones sibi Britannise anteponendas judicabat." We 
hope that the Boulogne and Calais people understand 
and appreciate the phrase. Having taken plenty of 
hostages, he determines to trust the Boulogne and 
Calais people, and prepares his ships for passing the 
Channel. He starts nearly at the third watch, — about 
midnight, we may presume. A portion of his army, — 
the cavalry, — encounter some little delay, such as has 
often occurred on the same spot since, even to travel- 
lers without horses. He himself got over to the 
British coast at about the fourth hour. This, at mid- 
summer, would have been about a quarter past eight. 
As it was now late in the summer, it may have been 
nine o'clock in the morning when Caesar found him- 
self under the cliffs of Kent, and saw our armed ances- 
tors standing along all the hills ready to meet him. 
He stayed at anchor, waiting for his ships, till about 
two P.M. His cavalry did not get across till four days 
afterwards. Having given his orders, and found a 
fitting moment and a fitting spot, Caesar runs his ships 
up upon the beach. 

Caesar confesses to a good deal of difficulty in getting 
ashore. When we know how very hard it is to ac- 
complish the same feat, on the same coast, in these 
days, with all the appliances of modern science to aid 
us, and, as we must presume, with no real intention 
on the part of the Cantii, or men of Kent, to oppose 
our landing, we can quite sympathise with Caesar. 
The ships were so big that they could not be brought 



CjESAR invades BRITAIN, 71 

into very shallow water. The Eoman soldiers were 
compelled to jump into the sea, heavily armed, and 
there to fight with the waves and with the enemy. 
But the Britons, having the use of all their limbs, 
knowing the ground, standing either on the shore or 
just running into the shallows, made the landing un- 
easy enough. "Kostri," — our men, — says Caesar, with 
all these things against them, were not all of them so 
alert at fighting as was usual with them on dry ground ; 
— at which no one can be surprised. 

Caesar had two kinds of ships — "naves longae," 
long ships for carrying soldiers ; and " naves oner- 
ariae," ships for carrying burdens. The long ships 
do not seem to have been such ships of w^ar as the 
Eomans generally used in their sea-fights, but were 
handier, and more easily w^orked, than the trans- 
ports. These he laid broadside to the shore, and 
harassed the poor natives Avith stones and arrow^s. 
Then the eagle-bearer of the tenth legion jumped 
into the sea, proclaiming that he, at any rate, 
would do his duty. Unless they wished to see their 
eagle fall into the hands of the enemy, they must 
follow him. " Jump down, he said, my fellow-sol- 
diers, unless you wish to betray your eagle to the 
enemy. I at least will do my duty to the Eepublic 
and to our General. When he had said this with a 
loud voice, he threw himself out of the ship and 
advanced the eagle against the enemy." Seeing and 
hearing this, the men leaped forth freely, from that 
ship and from others. As usual, there was some sharp 
fighting. " Pugnatum est ab utrisque acriter." It is 



72 THE WAR IN QAUL.- FOURTH BOOK. 

nearly always the same thing. Csesar throws away 
none of his glory hy underiating his enemy. But 
at length tlie Britons fly. '' This tiling only was 
wanting to Caesar's usual good fortune," — that he Avas 
deficient in cavalry wherewith to ride on in pursuit, 
and ''take the island ! '' Considering how very short 
a time he remains in the islnnd. w(- feel that liis com- 
plaint against forUuie is hardly well founded. But 
there is a general surrender, and a claiming of hos- 
tages, and after a few days a sparkle of new hope iji 
the breasts of the Britons. A storm arises, and Csesar's 
ships are so knocked about that he does not know how 
he will get back to Ganl. He is troubled by a very 
high tide, not understanding the nature of these tides. 
As he had only intended this for a little tentative 
trip, — a mere taste of a future war withBritain, — he had 
brought no large supply of corn with him. He must 
get back, by hook or by crook. The Britons, seeing 
how it is w^ith him, think that they can destroy him, 
and make an attempt to do so. The seventh legion is 
in great peril, having been sent out to find corn, but 
is rescued. Certain of his ships, — those which had been 
most grievously handled by the storm, — he breaks up, 
in order that he may mend the others with their mate- 
rials. When we think how long it takes us to mend 
ships, having dockyards, and patent slips, and all 
things ready, this i .ot marvellous to us. But he 
does mend his ships, and while so doing he has a 
second fight with the Britons, and again repulses them. 
There is a burning and destroying of everything far 
and wide, a gathering of ambassadors to Caesar asking 



CuESAR INVADES BRITAIN. 73 

for terms, a demand for hostages, — a double number of 
hostages now, — whom Caesar desired to have sent over 
to him to Gaul, because at this time of the year he did 
not choose to trust them to ships that were unsea- 
worthy; and he himself, with all his army, gets back 
into the Boulogne and Calais country. Two trans- 
ports only are missing, which are carried somewhat 
lower down the coast. There are but three hundred 
men in these transports, and these the Morini of tliose 
parts threaten to kill unless they will give up their 
arms. But Caesar sends help, and even these three 
hundred are saved from disgrace. There is, of course, 
more burning of houses and laying waste of fields be- 
cause of this little attempt, and then Caesar puts his 
army into winter quarters. 

"What would have been the difference to the world 
if the Britons, as they surely might have done, had 
destroyed Caesar and every Eoman, and not left even a 
ship to get back to Gaul ? In lieu of this Ccesar could 
send news to Eome of these various victories, and have 
a public thanksgiving decreed, — on this occasion for 
twenty days. 



CHAPTER YI. 

FIFTH BOOK OF THE WAE IN GAUL. — C^SAr's SECOND INVASION 
OF BRITAIN. — THE GAULS RISE AGAINST HIM.— B.C. 54. 

On liis return out of Britain, Csesar, as usual, went over 
the Alps to look after his other provinces, and to 
attend to his business in Italy ; but he was determined 
to make another raid upon the island. He could not 
yet assume that he had " taken it," and therefore he 
left minute instructions with his generals as to the 
building of more ships, and the repair of those which 
had been so nearly destroyed. He sends to Spain, he 
tells us, for the things necessary to equip his ships. 
We never hear of any difficulty about money. We 
know that he did obtain large grants from Rome for 
the support of his legions ; but no scruple was made 
in making war maintain war, as far as such mainten- 
ance could be obtained. Csesar personally was in an 
extremity of debt when he commenced his campaigns. 
He had borrowed an enormous sum, eight hundred 
- and thirty talents, or something over i>200,000, from 
Crassus, — who was specially the rich Roman of those 
days, — before he could take charge of his Spanish pro- 
vince. When his wars were over, he returned to Rome 



CjESArs second invasion of bhitain, 75 

with a great treasure ; and indeed during these wars 
in Gaul he expended large sums in bribing Eomans. 
We may suppose that he found hoards among tlie 
barbarians, as Lord Clive did in the East Indies. 
Clive contented himself with taking some : Csesar 
probably took all. 

Having given the order about his ships, he settled 
a little matter in Illyricum, taking care to raise some 
tribute there also. He allows but a dozen lines for 
recording this winter work, and then tells us that he 
hurried back to his army and his ships. His command 
had been so well obeyed in regard to vessels, that he 
finds ready, of that special sort which he had ordered 
with one bank of oars only on each side, as many as 
six hundred, and twenty-eight of the larger sort. He 
gives his soldiers very great credit for their exertions, 
and sends his fleet to the Portus Itius. The exact 
spot which CaBsar called by this name the geographers 
have not identified, but it is supposed to be between 
Boulogne and Calais. It may probably have been 
at Wissant. Having seen that things were thus 
ready for a second trip into Britain, he turns round 
and hurries off with four legions and eight hundred 
cavalry, — an army of 25,000 men, — into the Treves 
country. There is a quarrel going on there be- 
tween tw^o chieftains which it is well that he should 
settle, — somewhat as the monkey settled the contest 
about the oyster. This, however, is a mere nothing of 
an affair, and he is back again among his ships at the 
Portus Itius in a page and a half 

He resolves upon taking five legions of Jiis own 



76 THE WAR IN GAUL.— FIFTH BOOK, 

soldiers into Britain, and two thousand mounted Gauls. 
He liad brought together four thousand of these horse- 
men, collected from all Gaul, their chiefs and nobles, 
not only as fighting allies, but as hostages that the 
tribes should not rise in rebellion while his back was 
turned. These he divides, taking half with him, and 
leaving half with three legions of his own men, under 
Labienus, in the Boulogne country, as a base to his 
army, to look after the jorovisions, and to see that he 
be not harassed on his return. There is a little 
affair, however, with one of the Gaulish chieftains, 
Dumnorix the ^duan, who ought to have been 
his fastest friend. Dumnorix runs away with all the 
^duan horsemen. Caesar, however, sends after him 
and has him killed, and then all things are ready. 
He starts with altogether more than 800 ships at sun- 
set, and comes over with a gentle south-west wind. He 
arrives off the coast of Britain at about noon, but can 
see none of the inhabitants on the cliff. He imagines 
that they have all fled, frightened by the number of 
his ships. Csesar establishes his camp, and proceeds 
that same night about twelve miles into the country, 
— eleven miles, we may say, as our mile is longer than 
the Eoman, — and there he finds the Britons. There is 
some fighting, after which Caesar returns and fortifies 
his camp. Then there comes a storm and knocks his 
ships about terribly, — although he had found, as he 
thought, a nice soft place for them. But the tempest 
is very violent, and they are torn away from their 
anchors, and thrust upon the shore, and dashed against 
each other till there is infinite trouble. He is obliged 



CJESAR'S SECOXD IXVASIOX OF BRITAnV. 77 

to send over to Labienus, telling him to build more 
sliips ; and tliose which are left he drags up over the 
shore to his camp, in spite of the enormous labour re- 
quired in doing it. He is ten days at this work, night 
and day, and we may imagine that his soldiers had not 
an easy time of it. When this has been done, he 
advances again into the country after the enemy, and 
finds that Cassivellaunus is in command of the united 
forces of the different tribes. Cassivellaunus comes 
from the other side of the Thames, over in Middlesex or 
Hertfordshire. The Britons had not hitherto lived very 
peaceably together, but now they agree that against the 
Romans they will act in union under Cassivellaunus. 

Caesar's description of the island is very interesting. 
The. interior is inhabited by natives, — or rather by 
" aborigines." Csesar states this at least as the tra- 
dition of the country. But the maritime parts are 
held by Belgian immigrants, who, for the most part, 
have brought with them from the Continent the names 
of their tribes. The pojDulation is great, and the houses, 
built very like the houses in Gaul, are numerous and 
very thick together. The Britons have a great deal of 
cattle. They use money, having either copper coin or 
iron rings of a great weight. Tin is found in the 
middle of the island, and, about the coast, iron. 
But the quantity of iron found is small. Brass they 
import. They have the same timber as in Gaul, — only 
they have neither beech nor fir. Hares and chickens 
and geese they think it wrong to eat; but they keep 
these animals as pets. The climate, on the whole, is 
milder than in Gaul. The island is triangular. One 



78 THE WAR IN GAUL.— FIFTH BOOK, 

corner, that of Kent, has an eastern and a southern 
aspect. This southern side of the island he makes 
500 miles, exceeding the truth hy about 150 miles. 
Then Coesar becomes a little hazy in his geography, — 
telling us that the other side, meaning the Avestern 
line of the triangle, where Ireland lies, verges towards 
Spain. Ireland, he says, is half the size of Britain, and 
about the same distance from it that Britain is from 
Gaul. In the middle of the channel dividing Ireland 
from Britain there is an island called Mona, — the Isle 
of Man. There are also some other islands which at 
midwinter have thirty continuous days of night. Here 
Caesar becomes not only hazy but mythic. But he 
explains that he has seen nothing of this himself, 
although he has ascertained, by scientific measurement, 
that the nights in Britain are shorter than on the Con- 
tinent. Of course the nights are shorter with us in 
summer than they are in Italy, and longer in winter. 
The western coast he makes out to be 700 miles long ; 
in saying which he is nearly 100 miles over the mark. 
The third side he describes as looking towards the 
north. He means the eastern coast. This he calls 
800 miles long, and exaggerates our territories by more 
than 200 miles. The marvel, however, is that he should 
be so near the truth. The men of Kent are the most 
civilised : indeed they are almost as good as Gauls in 
this respect ! What changes does not time make in 
the comparatH^e merits of countries ! The men in the 
interior live on flesh and milk, and do not care for corn. 
They wear skin clothing. They make themselves hor- 
rible with woad, and go about with very long hair. 



I 



CESAR'S SECOND INVASION OF BRITAIN. 79 

They shave close, except the hccad and upper lip. 
Then comes the worst habit of all ; — ten or a dozen 
men have their wives in common between them. 

We have a very vivid and by no means unflattering 
account of the singular agility of our ancestors in their 
mode of fighting from their chariots. "This," says 
Caesar, " is the nature of their chariot-fighting. They 
first drive rapidly about the battle-field, — "per omnes 
partes," — and throw their darts, and frequently dis- 
order the ranks by the very terror occasioned by the 
horses and by the noise of the wheels ; and when they 
have made their way through the bodies of the cavalry, 
they jump down and fight on foot. Then the charioteers 
go a little out of the battle, and so place their chariots 
that they may have a ready mode of returning should 
their friends be pressed by the number of their enemies. 
Thus they unite the rapidity of cavalry and the stabil- 
ity of infantry ; and so efi'ective do they become by daily 
use and practice, that they are accustomed to keep their 
horses, excited as they are, on their legs on steep and 
precipitous ground, and to manage and turn them very 
quickly, and to run along the pole and stand upon the 
yoke," — by which the horses Avere held together at the 
collars, — "' and again with the greatest rapidity to re- 
turn to the chariot." "^ All which is very wonderful. 
Of course there is a great deal of fighting, and the 

* All well-instructed modern Britons have learned from the 
old authorities that the Briton war-chariots were furnished with 
scythes attached to the axles,— from Pomponius Mela, the Eoman 
geographer, and from Mrs Markham, among others. And Eugene 
Sue, in his novel translated into English under the name of the 
* Rival Races, ' explains how the Bretons on the other side of 



80 THE WAR IN GAUL,— FIFTH BOOK. 

Britons soon learn by experience to avoid general 
engagements and maintain guerilla actions. Caesar by 
degrees makes his way to the Thames, and with great 
difficulty gets his army over it. He can only do this 
at one place, and that badly. The site of this ford he 
does not describe to us. It is supposed to have been 
near the place which we now know as Sunbury. He 
does tell us that his men were so deep in the water 
that their heads only were above the stream. But 
even thus they were so impetuous in their onslaught, 
that the Britons would not wait for them on the 
opposite bank, but ran away. Soon there come 
unconditional surrender, and hostages, and promises 
of tribute. Cassivellaunus, who is himself but a 
usurper, and therefore has many enemies at home, 
endeavours to make himself secure in a strong place or 
town, which is supposed to have been on or near the site 
of our St Albans. Caesar, however, explains that the 
poor Britons give the name of a town, — " oppidum,'* 
— to a spot in which they have merely surrounded 
some thick woods with a ditch and rampart. Caesar, 
of course, drives them out of their woodland fortress, 
and then there quickly follows another surrender, more 
hostages, and the demand for tribute. Caesar leaves 
his orders behind him, as though to speak were to be 
obeyed. One Mandubratius, and not Cassivellaunus, 

the water, in the Morbihan, used these scythes ; and how, before 
a battle with Caesar's legions, the wives of the warriors arranged 
the straps so that the scythes might be worked from the chariot 
like ^oars from a boat. But Caesar says nothing of such scythes, 
and surely he would have done so had he seen them. The reader 
must choose between Caesar's silence and the authority of Pom- 
ponius Mela, Mrs Markham, and Eugene Sue. 



CJSSAR'S SECOND INVASION OF BRITAIN. 81 

is to be the future king in Middlesex and Hertford- 
shire, — that is, over the Trinobantes who live there. 
He fixes the amount of tribute to be sent annually by 
the Britons to Eome ; and he especially leaves orders 
that Cassivellaunus shall do no mischief to the young 
Mandubratius. Then he crosses back into Gaul at two 
trips, — his ships taking half the army first and coming 
back for the other half ; and he piously observes that 
though he had lost many ships when they were com- 
paratively empty, hardly one had been destroyed while 
his soldiers were in thefn. 

So was ended Caesar's second and last invasion of 
Britain. That he had reduced Britain as he had re- 
duced Gaul he certainly could not boast ; — though 
Quintus Cicero had written to his brother to say that 
Britannia was, — **confecta," — finished. Though he 
had twice landed his army under the white clifi's, and 
twice taken it away with comparative security, he had 
on both occasions been made to feel how terribly strong 
an ally to the Britons was that channel which divided 
them from the Continent. The reader is made to feel 
that on both occasions the existence of his army and of 
himself is in the greatest peril. Caesar's idea in attack- 
ing Britain was probably rather that of making the 
Gauls believe that his power could reach even beyond 
them, — could extend itself all round them, even into 
distant islands, — than of absolutely establishing the 
Eoman dominion beyond that distant sea. The Bri- 
tons had helped the Gauls in their wars with him, and 
it was necessary that he should punish any who pre- 
sumed to give such help. Whether the orders which 

A. c. vol. iv. p 



82 



THE WAR m GAUL,— FIFTH BOOK, 



he left behind him were obeyed we do not know ; 
"but we may imagine that the tribute exacted was not 
sent to Eome with great punctuality. In fact, Csesar 
invaded the island twice, but did not reduce it. 

On his return to Gaul, nearly at the close of the 
summer, he found himself obliged to distribute his 
army about the country because of a great scarcity of 
provisions. There had been a drought, and the crops 
had failed. Hitherto he had kept his army together 
during the winter; now he was obliged to divide his 
legions, placing one with one\ribe, and another with 
another. A legion and a half he stations under two of 
his generals, L. Titurius Sabinus, and L. Aurunculeius 
Cotta, among the Eburones, who live on the banks of the 
Mouse in the Liege and ^Namur country, — a very stout 
people, who are still much averse to the dominion of 
Eome. In this way he thought he might best get over 
that difficulty as to the scarcity of provisions ; but yet 
he so weU ujiderstood the danger of separating his 
army, that he is careful to tell us that, with the excep- 
tion of one legion which he had stationed in a very 
quiet country, — among the Essui, where Alengon now 
stands, — they were all within a hundred miles of each 
other. I^evertheless, in spite of this precaution, there 
now fell upon Caesar the greatest calamity which he 
had ever yet suiFered in war. 

During all these campaigns, the desire of the Gauls 
to free themselves from the power and the tyranny of 
Eome never ceased; nor did their intention to do so 
ever fade away. Coesar must have been to them as a 
venomous blight, or some evil divinity sent to afflict 
them for causes which they could not understand. 



HATRED OF THE GAULS TOWARDS CuESAR. 83 

There were trites who truckled to him, hut he had no 
real friends among them. If any Gauls could have 
loved him, the ^dui should have done so ; hut that 
Dumnorix, the ^duan, who ran away with the horse- 
men of his trihe when he was wanted to help in the 
invasion of Eritain, had, hefore he Avas killed, tried to 
defend himself, asserting vociferously that he was a 
free man and belonging to a free state. He had failed 
to understand that, in heing admitted to the alliance 
of Caesar, he was bound to obey Caesar. Csesar speaks 
of it all with his godlike simplicity, as though he saw 
nothing ungodlike in the work he was doing. There 
was no touch of remorse in him, as he ordered men to 
be slaughtered and villages to be burned. He was 
able to look at those things as trifles, — as parts of a great 
whole. He felt no more than does the gentleman who 
sends the sheep out of his park to be slaughtered at 
the appointed time. When he seems to be most cruel, 
it is for the sake of example, — that some politic result 
may follow, — that Gauls may know, and Italians know 
also, that they must bow the knee to Caesar. Eut the 
heart of the reader is made to bleed as he sees the 
unavailing struggles of the tribes. One does not spe- 
cially love the -^dui ; but Dumnorix protesting that 
he will not return, that he is a free man, of a free 
state, and then being killed, is a man to be loved. 
Among the Carnutes, where Chartres now stands, 
Caesar has set up a pet king, one Tasgetius ; but when 
Ca3sar is away in Eritain, the Carnutes kill Tasgetius. 
They will have no pet of Caesar's. And now the stout 
Eburones, who have two kings of their own over them, 
Ambiorix and Cativolcus, understanding that Caesar s d if • 



84 



THE WAR IN GAUL.—FIFTH BOOK. 



ficultyis their opportunity, attack the Eornan camp, with 
its legion and a half of men under Titurius and Cotta. 
Amhiorix, the chieftain, is very crafty. He persuades 
the Eon^an generals to send ambassadors to him, and 
to these he tells his story. He himself, Ambiorix, loves 
Caesar beyond all things. Has not Csesar done him great 
kindnesses 1 He would not willingly lift a hand 
against Caesar, but he cannot control his state. The 
facts, however, are thus ; an enormous body of Ger-. 
mans has crossed the Ehine, and is hurrying on to 
destroy that Eoman camp ; and it certainly will be de- 
stroyed, so great is the number of the Germans. Thus 
says Ambiorix ; and then suggests whether it would 
not be well that Titurius and Cotta with their nine or 
ten thousand men, — a mere handful of men against all 
these Germans who are already over the Ehine; — would 
it not be well that the Eomans should go and join 
some of their brethren, either the legion that is among 
the ^Nervii to the east, under Quintus Cicero, the 
brother of the great orator — or that other legion which 
Labienus has, a little to the south, on the borders of; 
the Eemi and Treviri ? And in regard to a good turn 
on his own part, so great is the love and veneration 
which he, Ambiorix, feels for Caesar, that he is quite 
ready to see the Eomans safe through the territories of; 
the Eburones. He begs Titurius and Cotta to think 
of this, and to allow him to aid them in their escape 
while escape is possible. The two Eoman generals do 
think of it. Titurius thinks that it will be well to take 
the advice of Ambiorix. Cotta, and with him many 
of the tribunes and centurions of the soldiers, think 
that they should not stir without Caesar's orders; — 



THE SUCCESS OF AMBIORIX. 85 

tLink also that there is nothing baser or more foolish 
in warfare than to act on advice given by an enerhy. 
Titurius, however, is clear for going, and Cotta, after 
much argument and some invective, gives way. Early 
on the next morning they all leave their camp, taking 
with them their baggage, and marching forth as though 
through a friendly country, — apparently with belief in 
the proffered friendship of Ambiorix. The Eburones 
had of course prepared an ambush, and the Eoman 
army is attacked both behind and before, and is thrown 
into utter confusion. 

The legion, or legion and a half, with its two com- 
manders, is altogether destroyed. Titurius goes out 
from his ranks to meet Ambiorix, and pray for peace. 
He is told to throw away his arms, and submitting to 
the disgrace, casts them down. Then, while Ambiorix 
is making a long speech, the Eoman general is sur- 
rounded and slaughtered. Cotta is killed fighting; 
as also are more than half the soldiers. The rest get 
back into the camp at night, and then, despairing of 
any safety, overwhelmed with disgrace, conscious that 
there is no place for hope, they destroy themselves. 
Only a few have escaped during the fighting to toil the 
tale in the camp of Eabienus. 

As a rule the reader's sympathies are with the Gauls ; 
but we cannot help feeling a c^^rtam regret that a 
Eoman legion should have thas been wiled on to de- 
struction through the weakness of its general. li 
Titurius could have been made to suffer alone we should 
bear it better. Allien we are told how the gallant 
eagle-bearer, Petrosidius, throws his eagle into the ram- 
part, and then dies fighting befr.re the camp, we wish 



86 THE WAR IN GAUL.—FIFTH BOOK, 

that Ambiorix had been less successful. Of this, how- 
ever, we feel quite certain, that there will come a day, 
and that soon, in which Caesar will exact punishment. 

Having done so much, Ambiorix and the Eburones 
do not desist. [N'ow, if ever, after so great a disgrace, 
and with legions still scattered, may Caesar be worsted. 
Q. Cicero is with his legion among the l^ervii, and 
thither Ambiorix goes. The ^ervii are quite ready, 
and Cicero is attacked in his camp. And here, too, 
for a long while it goes very badly with the Eomans ; — 
so badly that Cicero is hardly able to hold his ramparts 
against the attacks made upon them by the barbarians. 
Eed-hot balls of clay and hot arrows are thrown into 
the camp, and there is a fire. The messengers sent to 
Ca3sar for help are slain on the road, and the Eomans 
begin to think that there is hardly a chance for them 
of escape. Unless Caesar be with them they are not safe. 
All their power, their prestige, their certainty of con- 
quest, lies in Caesar. Cicero behaves like a prudent 
and a valiant man ; but unless he had at last succeeded 
in getting a Gaulish slave to take a letter concealed in 
a dart to Caesar, the enemy would have destroyed him. 

There is a little episode of two Eoman centurions, 
Pulfius and Yarenus, who were always quarrelling as to 
which was the better man of the two. Pulfius with 
much bravado rushes out among the enemy, and 
Varenus follows him. Pulfius gets into trouble, and 
Varenus rescues him. Then Yarenus is in a difficulty, 
and Pulfius comes to his assistance. According to all 
chances of war, both should have been killed ; but 
both get back safe into the camp ; — and nobody knows 
from that day to this which was the better man. 



THE DANGER OF QUINTUS CICERO. 87 

Caesar, of course, hastens to the assistance of his lieu- 
tenant, having sent word of his coming by a letter 
fastened to another dart, which, however, hardly 
reaches Cicero in time to comfort him before he sees 
the fires by which the coming legions wasted the 
country along their line of march. Then there is 
more fighting. Caesar conquers, and Q. Cicero is rescued 
from his very disagreeable position. Labienus has 
also been in difficulty, stationed, as we remember, on 
the borders of the Treviri. The Treviri were quite 
as eager to attack him as the Eburones and JN'ervii to 
destroy the legions left in their territories. Eat before 
the attack is made, the news of Caesar's victory, travel- 
ling with wonderful speed, is heard of in those parts, 
and the Treviri think it best to leave Labienus alone. 

But Caesar has perceived that, although he has so 

often boasted that all Gaul was at last at peace, all Gaul 

is prepared to carry on the war against him. It is 

during this winter that he seems to realize a conviction 

that his presence in the country is not popular with the 

[Gauls in general, and that he has still much to do 

I before he can make them understand that they are not 

[free men, belonging to free states. The opposition to 

[him has become so general that he himself determines 

I to remain in Gaul all the winter ; and even after tell- 

r ing us of the destruction of Indutiomarus, the chief of 

[ the Treviri, by Labienus, he can only boast that — *' Caesar 

[had, after that was done, Gaul a little quieter," — a 

little more like a subject country bound hand and loot, 

[ — than it was before. During this year Caesar's pro- 

1 consular power over his provinces was extended for a 

! second period of five years. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SIXTH BOOK OF THE WAK IN GAUL. — C^SAR PURSUES AMBIORIX. 
— THE MANNERS OF THE GAULS AND OF THE GERMANS ARE 
CONTRASTED. — B.C. 53. 

C^SAR begins tne next campaign before the winter 
is over, having, as we have seen, been forced to con- 
tinue the last long after the winter had commenced. 
The Gauls were learning to unite themselves, and 
things wei8 becoming very serious with him. One 
Roman army, with probably ten thousand men, had 
been absolutely destroyed, with its generals Titurius 
Sabinus and Aurunculeius Gotta. Another under 
Quintus Gicero would have suffered the same fate, 
but for Caesar's happy intervention. A third under 
Labienus had been attacked. All Gaul had been 
under arms, or thinking of arms, in the autumn ; and 
though Caesar had been able to report at the end of the 
champaign that Gaul, — his Gaul, as he intended that it 
shoald be, — was a little quieter, nevertheless he under- 
stood well that he still had his work to do before he 
could enter upon possession. He had already been the 
master of eight legions in Gaul, containing 48,000 foot- 
soldiers, levied on the Italian side of the Alps. He 



CuESAR RECRUITS HIS ARMY, 89 

had added to this a large body of Gaulish cavalry and 
light infantry, over and above his eight legions. He 
had now lost an entire legion and a half, besides 
the gaps which must have been made in Britain, 
and by the loss of those who had fallen when attacked 
under Cicero by the Nervii. But he would show the 
Gauls that when so treated he could begin again, not 
only with renewed but with increased force. He would 
astound them by his display of Eoman power, '* think- 
ing that, for the future, it would greatly affect the opin- 
ion of Gaul that the power of Italy should be seen to be 
so great that, if any reverse in war were suffered, not 
only could the injury be cured in a short time, but 
that the loss could be repaired even by increased 
forces." He not only levies fresh troops, but borrows 
a legion which Pompey commands outside the walls 
of Eome. He tells us that Pompey yields his legion 
to the " Eepublic and to Friendship. " The Triumvi- 
rate was still existing, and Caesar's great colleague 
probably felt that he had no alternative. In this way 
Caesar not only re-established the legion which had 
been annihilated, but completes the others, and takes 
the field with two new legions added to his army. He 
probably now had as many as eighty thousand men 
under his command. 

He first makes a raid against our old triends the 
Nervii, who had nearly conquered Cicero before 
Christmas, and who were already conspiring again 
with certain German and neighbouring Belgian tribes. 
The reader will perhaps remember that in the second 
book this tribe was said to have been so utterly de- 



90 TEE WAR IN GAUL.— SIXTH BOOK. 

stroyed that hardly their name remained. That, no 
doubt, was Caesar's belief after the great slaughter. 
There had been, however, enough of them left nearly 
to destroy Q. Cicero and his legion. Then Csesar goes 
to Paris, — Lutetia Parisiorum, of which we now hear 
for the first time, — and, with the help of his friends 
the ^dui and the Remi, makes a peace with the 
centre tribes of Gaul, the Senones and Carnutes. 
Then he resolves upon attacking Ambiorix with all 
his heart and soul. Ambiorix had destroyed his 
legion and killed his two generals, and against 
Ambiorix he must put forth all his force. It is 
said that when Csesar first heard of that misfortune 
he swore that he would not cut his hair or shave 
himself till he was avenged. But he feels that he 
must first dispose of those who would naturally be 
the allies of this much-to-be-persecuted enemy. The 
Menapii, with whom we may remember that he had 
never quite settled matters in his former war, and 
who live on the southern banks of the Mense not far 
from the sea, have not even yet sent to him messen- 
gers to ask for peace. He burns their villages, takes 
their cattle, makes slaves of the men, and then binds 
them by hostages to have no friendship with Am- 
biorix. In the mean time Labienus utterly defeats the 
great north-eastern tribe, the Treviri, Avhom he cun- 
ningly allures into fighting just before they are joined 
by certain Germans who are coming to aid them. 
*^ Quern Deus vult perdere prius dementat.'' These 
unfortunate Gauls and Germans fall into every trap 
that is laid for them. The speech which Caesar quotes 



C^SAR BUILDS A SECOND BRIDGE. 91 

as having been made by Labieniis to bis troops on 
this occasion is memorable. " jN'ow," says Labienus, 
" you have your opportunity. You have got your 
enemy thoroughly at advantage. That valour which 
you have so often displayed before the ' Imperator/ 
Caesar, display now under my command. Think that 
Caesar is present, and that he beholds you.'' To have 
written thus of himself C^sar must have thought of 
himself as of a god. He tells the story as though 
it were quite natural that Labienus and the soldiers 
should so regard him. 

After this battle, in wdiich the Treviri are of course 
slaughtered, Caesar makes a second bridge over the 
Ehine, somewhat above the spot at Avhich he had 
crossed before. He does this, he says, for tw^ o reasons, 
— first, because the Germans had sent assistance to 
the ]N"ervii; and secondly, lest his git3at enemy Am- 
biorix should find shelter among the Suevi. Then he 
suggests that the opportunity is a good one for saying 
something to his readers of the different manners of 
Gaul and of Germany. Among the Gauls, in their 
tribes, their villages, and even in their families, there 
are ever two factions, so that one should always 
balance the other, and neither become superior. Caesar 
so tells us at this particular point of his narrative, 
because he is anxious to go back and explain how it 
was that he had taken the part of the ^dui, and had 
first come into conflict with the Germans, driving 
Ariovistus back across the Ehine for their sake. In 
eastern Gaul two tribes had long balanced each other, 
oach, of course, striving for mastery, — the -^dui and 



92 THE WAR IN OAUL.—SIXTH BOOK, 

the Sequani. The Sequani had called in the aid of 
the Germans, and the ^dui had been very hardly 
treated. In their sufferings they had appealed to 
Eome, having had former relations of close amity with 
the Republic. Divitiacus, their chief magistrate, — the 
brother of Dumnorix who was afterwards killed by 
Caesar's order for running away Avith the ^duan 
cavalry before the second invasion of Britain, — had 
lived for a while in Eome, and had enjoyed Eoman 
friendships, that of Cicero among others. There was 
a good deal of doubt in Eome as to what should be 
done with these ^Edui ; but at last, as we know, Caesar 
decided on taking their part ; and we know also how he 
drove Ariovistus back into Germany, with the loss of 
his wives and daughters. Thus it came to pass, Caesar 
tells us, that the ^dui we're accounted first of all the 
Gauls in regard to friendship with Eome ; while the 
Eemi, who came to his assistance so readily when the 
Belgians were in arms against him, w^ere allowed the 
second place. 

Among the Gauls there are, he says, two classes of 
men held in honour, — the Druids and the knights ] by 
which we understand that two professions or modes of 
life, and two only, were open to the nobility, — the priest- 
hood and the army. All the common people, Caesar 
says, are serfs, or little better. They do not hesitate, 
when oppressed by debt or taxation, or the fear of 
some powerful enemy, to give themselves into slavery, 
loving the protection so obtained. The Druids have 
the chief political authority, and can maintain it by 
the dreadful power of excommunication. The excom- 



MANNERS OF THE GAULS. 93 

municated wretch, is an outlaw, beyond tlie pale of 
civil rights. Over the Druids is one great Druid, at 
whose death the place is filled by election among all 
the Druids, unless there be one so conspicuously first 
that no ceremony of election is needed. Their most 
sacred spot for worship is among the Carnutes, in the 
middle of th.e country. Their discipline and mys- 
teries came to them from Britain, and when any very 
knotty point arises they go to Britain to make inquiry. 
The Druids don't fight, and pay no taxes. The ambi- 
tion to be a Druid is very great ; but then so is the 
difiiculty. Twenty years of tuition is not uncommonly 
needed ; for everything has to be learned by heart. Of 
their religious secrets nothing may be written. Their 
great doctrine is the transmigration of souls ; so that 
men should believe that the soul never dies, and that 
death, therefore, or that partial death which, we see, 
need not be feared. They are great also in astronomy, 
geography, natural history, — and general theology, of 
course. 

The knights, or nobles, have no resource but to 
fight. Caesar suggests that before the blessing of his 
advent they were driven to the disagreeable necessity 
of fighting yearly with each other. Of all people the 
Gauls, he says, are the most given to superstition ; in 
so much so, that in all dangers and difficulties they 
have recourse to human sacrifices, in which the Druids 
are their ministers. They burn their victims to 
appease their deities, and, by preference, will burn 
thieves and murderers, — the gods loving best such 
polluted victims, — but, in default of such, will have 



94 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SIXTH BOOK. 

recourse to an immolation of innocents. Then Csesat 
tells us that among the" gods they chiefly worship 
Mercury, whom they seem to have regarded as the 
cleverest of the gods ; but they also worship Apollo, 
Mars, Jove, and Minerva, ascribing to them the attri- 
butes which are allowed thein by other nations. How 
the worship of the Greek and Eoman gods became 
mingled with the religion of the Druids we are not 
told, nor does Caesar express surprise that it should 
have been so. Csesar gives the Eoman names of 
these gods, but he does not intend us to understand 
that they were so called by the Gauls, who had their 
own names for their deities. The trophies of war 
they devote to Mars, and in many states keep large 
stores of such consecrated spoils. It is not often 
that a Gaul will commit the sacrilege of appropri- 
ating to his own use anything thus made sacred ; 
but the punishment of such offence, when it is com- 
mitted, is death by torture. There is the greatest 
veneration from sons to their fathers. Until the 
son can bear arms he does not approach his father, 
or even stand in public in his presence. The hus- 
band's fortune is made to equal the wife's dowry, and 
then the property is common between them. This 
seems well enough, and the law would suit the views 
of British wives of the present day. But the next 
Gaulish custom is not so well worthy of example. 
Husbands have the power of life and death over their 
wives and children ; and when any man of mark dies, if 
there be cause for suspicion, his wives are examined 
under torture, and if any evil practice be confessed, they 



MANNERS OF THE GERMANS. 95 

are then tortured to death. We learn from this passage 
that polygamy was allowed among the Gauls. The 
Gauls have grand funerals. Tlnngs wdiich have heen 
dear to the departed are burned at these cere monies. 
Animals Avere thus burned in Ciesar's time, but in 
former days slaves also, and dependants who had been 
specially loved. The best-governed states are very 
particular in not allowing rumours as to state affairs to 
be made matter of public discussion. Anything heard 
is to be told to the magistrate ; but there is to be no 
discussion on public affairs except in the public coun^ 
cil. So much we hear of the customs of the Gauls. 

The Germans differ from the Gauls in many things. 
They know nothing of Druids, nor do they care for 
sacrifices. They worship only what they see and 
enjoy, — the sun, and fire, and the moon. They spend 
their time in hunting and w^ar, and care little for 
agi'iculture. They live on milk, cheese, and fiesh. 
They are communists as to the soil, and stay no 
longer than a year on the same land. These customs 
they follow lest they should learn to prefer agriculture 
to war ; lest they should grow fond of broad posses- 
sions, so that the rich should oppress the poor ; lest 
they should by too much comfort become afraid of 
cold and heat ; lest the love of money should grow 
among them, and one man should seek to be higher 
than another. From all which it seems that the 
Germans were not without advanced ideas in political 
economy. 

It is a great point witn tne Germans to have no 
near neighbours. For the sake of safety and inde- 



96 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SIXTH BOOK. 

pendeiice, each tribe loves to have a wide margin. In 
war the chieftains have power of life and death. In 
time of peace there are no appointed magistrates, hut 
the chiefs in the cantons declare justice and quell 
litigation as well as they can. Thieving in a neigh- 
bouring state, — not in his own, — is honourable to a 
German. Expeditions for thieving are formed, which 
men may join or not as they please ; but woe betide 
him who, having promised, fails. They are good to 
travelling strangers. There was a time when the 
Gauls were better men than the Germans, and could 
come into Germany and take German land. Even 
now, says Csesar, there are Gaalish tribes living in 
Germany after German fashion. But the nearness of 
the Province to Gaul has taught the Gauls luxury, and 
so it has come to pasG that the Gauls are not as good 
in battle as the}'' used to be. It is interesting to 
gather from all these notices the progress of civilisa- 
tion through the peoples of Europe, and some hint 
as to what has been thought to be good and bad 
for humanity by various races before the time of 
Christ. 

Caesar then tells us of a great Hercynian forest, 
beginning from the north of Switzerland and stretch- 
ing away to the Danube. A man in nine days would 
traverse its breadth; but even in sixty days a man 
could not get to the end of it lengthwise. We may 
presume that the Black Forest was a portion of it. It 
contains many singular beasts, — bisons with one horn; 
elks, which are like great stags, but which have no 
joints in their legs, and cannot lie down, — nor, if 



C^SAR PURSUES AMBIORIX, 97 

knocked down, can they get up, — which sleep leaning 
against trees ; but the trees sometimes break, and 
then the elk falls and has a bad time of it. Then 
there is the urus, almost as big as an elephant, which 
spares neither man nor beast. It is a great thing to 
kill a urus, but no one can tame them, even when 
young. The Germans are fond of mounting the horns 
of this animal with silver, and using them for drinking- 
cups. 

Caesar does very little over among the Germans. 
wk He comes back, partly destroys his bridge, and starts 
^■kgain in search of Ambiorix. His lieutenant Basilus 
^Haeariy takes the poor hunted chieftain, but Ambiorix 
^■escapes, and Caesar moralises about fortune. Ambi- 
orix, the reader will remember, was joint-king over 
the Eburones with one Cativolcus. Cativolcus, who is 
old, finding how his people arc harassed, curses his 
brother king who has brought these sorrows on the 
nation, and poisons himself with the juice of yew- 
tree. 

All the tribes in the Belgic country, Gauls as well 
as Germans, were now very much harassed. They all 
had helped, or might have helped, or, if left to them- 
selves, might at some future time give help to Ambi- 
orix and the Eburones. Caesar divides his army, but 
still goes himself in quest of his victim into the damp, 
uncomfortable countries near the mouths of the Scheldt 
and Meuse. Here he is much distracted between his 
burning desire to extirpate that race of wicked men 
over whom Ambiorix had been king, and his anxiety 
lest he should lose more of his own men in the work 
A. c. vol. iv. Q 



98 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SIXTH BOOK. 

than the wicked race is worth. He invites the neigh- 
bouring Gauls to help him in the work, so that Gauls 
should perish in those inhospitable regions rather than 
his own legionaries. This, however, is fixed in his 
mind, that a tribe which has been guilty of so terrible 
an offence, — which has destroyed in war an army of 
his, just as he would have delighted to destroy a 
Gaulish army, — must be extirpated, so that its very 
name may cease to exist ! '' Pro tali facinore, stirps ac 
nomen civitatis tollatur." 

Caesar, in dividing his army, had stationed Q. 
Cicero with one legion and the heavy baggage and 
spoils of the army, in a fortress exactly at that spot 
from which Titiirius Sabinus had been lured by the 
craft of Ambiorix. Certain Germans, the Sigambri, 
having learned that all the property of the Eburones 
had been given up by Caesar as a prey to any who 
would take it, had crossed the Ehine that they might 
thus fill their hands. But it is suggested to them 
that they may fill their hands much fuller by attack- 
ing Q. Cicero in his camp ; and they do attack him, 
when the best part of his army is away looking for 
provisions. That special spot in the territory of the 
Eburones is again nearly fatal to a Eoman legion. 
But the Germans, not knowing how to press the 
advantage they gain, return with their spoil across the 
Ehine, and Caesar again comes up like a god. But he 
has not as yet destroyed Ambiorix, — who indeed is 
not taken at last, — and expresses his great disgust and 
amazement that the coming of these Germans, which 
was planned with the view of injuring Ambiorix, 



I. 

Ifc b 



AMBIORIX ESCAPES. 99 

should have done instead so great a service to that 
monstrously wicked chieftain. 

He does his very best to catch Ambiorix in person, 
offering great rewards and inducing his men to undergo 
all manner of hardships in the pursuit. Ambiorix, 
however, with three or four chosen followers, escapes 
him. But Caesar is not without revenge. He burns 
all the villages of the Eburones, and all their houses. 
He so lays waste the country that even when his army 
is gone not a soul should be able to live there. After 
that he probably allowed himself to be shaved. Am- 
biorix is seen here and is seen there, but with hair- 
breadth chances eludes his pursuer. Caesar, havjng 
,hus failed, returns south, as winter approaches, to 
Rheims, — Durocortorum ; and just telling us in four 
words how he had one Acco tortured to death because 
Acco had headed a conspiracy in the middle of Gaul 
among the Camutes and Senones, and how he out- 
lawed and banished others whom he coidd not catch, 
he puts his legions into winter quarters, and again 
goes back to Italy to hold assizes and look after his 
interests amid the great affairs of the Republic. 



CHAPTER YIIL 

BEVENTH BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL. — THE REVOLT 
OF VERCINGETORIX. — B.C. 52. 

In opening his account of his seventh campaign Caesar 
makes almost the only reference to the affairs of Eome 
which we find in these memoirs. Clodius has been 
murdered. We know, too, that Crassus had been killed 
at the head of his army in the east, and that, at the death 
of Clodius, Pompey had been created Dictator in the 
city with the name of sole Consul. Caisar, however, 
only mentions the murder of Clodius, and then goes on 
to say that the Gauls, knowing how important to him 
must be the affairs of Rome at this moment, think that 
he cannot now attend to them, and that, in his absence, 
they may shake off the Roman yoke. The affairs of 
Rome must indeed have been important to Caesar, if, 
as no doubt is true, he had already before his eyes a 
settled course of action by which to make himself su- 
preme in the Republic. Clodius, the demagogue, was 
dead, whom he never could have loved, but whom it 
had not suited him to treat as an enemy. Crassus, too, 
was dead, whom, on account of his wealth, Csesar had 
admitted as a colleague. Pompey, the third triumvir, 



THE REVOLT OF VERCINGETORIX. 101 

remained at Eome, and was now sole Consul ; Pom- 
pey who, only twelve months since, had so fondly 
given up his legion for the sake of the Eepublic, — and 
for friendship. Csesar, no doubt, foresaw by this time 
that the struggle must be at last between himself and 
Pompey. The very forms of the old republican rule 
-were being turned adrift, and Caesar must have known, 
as Pompey also knew, and Clodius had known, and 
even Crassus, that a new power would become para- 
mount in the city. But the hands to wrest such power 
must be very strong. And the day had not yet quite 
come. Having spent six summers in subduing Gaul, 
Caesar would not lose the prestige, the power, the sup- 
port, which such a territory, really subdued, would give 
him. Things, doubtless, were important at Eome, but 
it was still his most politic course to return over the 
Alps and complete his work. Before the winter was 
over he heard that the. tribes were conspiring, because 
it was thought that at such an emergency Caesar could 

aot leave Italy. 
This last book of the Commentary, as written by 

^Jaesar, tells the story of the gallant Yercingetorix, one 
of the Arverni, — the modern Auvergne, — whose father, 

^eltillus, is said to have sought the chieftainship of all 

laul, and to have been killed on that account by his 
3wn state. Yercingetorix is certainly the hero of these 

rars on the Gaulish side, though we hear nothing of 
tiim till this seventh campaign. The conspiracy against 

lome is afloat, the Carnutes, whose chief town is Gena- 
bum, — Orleans, — having commenced it. Yercingetorix 
pxcites his own countrymen to join, but is expelled from 



102 THE WAR IN OAVL,— SEVENTH BOOK. 

their town, Gergovia, for the attempt. The Arvemi, or 
at least their chief men, fear to oppose the Eomans ; 
but Vercingetorix obtains a crowd of followers out in 
the country, and perseveres. Men of other tribes come 
to him, from as far north as Paris, and west from the 
Ocean. He assumes supreme power, and enacts and 
carries out most severe laws for his guidance during the 
war. For any greater offence he burns the offender 
alive and subjects him to all kinds of torments. For 
any small fault he cuts off a man's ears, pokes out one 
of his eyes, and sends him home, that he may be an 
example visible to all men. By threats of such pun- 
ishment to those who do not join him, and by inflict- 
ing such on those who do and are then untrue to him 
or lukewarm, he gets together a great army. Caesar, 
who is still in Italy, hears of all this, and having made 
things comfortable with Pompey, hurries into the pro- 
vince. He tells us of his great difficulty in joining 
his army, — of the necessity which is incumbent on him 
of securing even the Roman Province from invasion, 
and of the manner in which he breaks through snow- 
clad mountains, the Cevennes, at a time of the year in 
which such mountains were supposed to be impassable. 
He is forced into fighting before the winter is over, be- 
cause, unless he does so, the few friends he has in Gaul, 
— the iEdui, for instance, — will have been gained over 
by the enemy. This made it very difficult, Caesar tells 
us, for him to know what to do ; but he decides that 
he must begin his campaign, though it be winter still. 
Caesar, moving his army about Avitli wonderful quick- 
ness, takes three towns in the centre of Gaul, of which 



THE FATE OF AVARICUM. 103 

Genabum, Orleans, is the first, and thus provides him- 
self Avith food. Yercingetorix, when he hears of these 
losses, greatly troubled in his mind that Caesar should 
thus be enabled to exist on the provisions gathered by 
the Gauls, determines to burn all the Gaulish towns in 
those parts. He tells his people that there is nothing 
else for them in their present emergency, and that they 
must remember when they see their hearths smoking 
and their property destroyed, that it would be, or ought 
to be, much more grievous for them to know that their 
wives and children would become slaves, as undoubt- 
edly would be their fate, if Caesar were allowed to pre- 
vail. The order is given. Twenty cities belonging to 
one tribe are burned to the ground. The same thing 
is done in other states. But there is one very beauti- 
ful city, the glory of the country round, which can, they 
say, be so easily defended that it will be a comfort , 
rather than a peril to them. Avaricum, the present 
Bourges, — must that also be burned ? May not Ava- 
ricum be' spared "? Yercingetorix is all for burning 
Avaricum as he has burned the others ; but he allows 
himself to be persuaded, and the city is spared — for the 
time. 

Caesar, of course, determines to .:aive Avaricum ; but 
he encounters great difficulties. . The cattle have been 
driven away. There is no corn. Those wretched 
^dui do almost nothing for him ; and the Boii, who 
are their neighbours, and who, at the best, are but a 
poor scanty people, are equally unserviceable. Some 
days his army is absolutely without food ; but jet no 
word of complaint is heard " unworthy of the majesty 



104 THE WAR IN GAUL.-SEVENTH BOOK. 

and former victories of the Koinaii people." Tlie sol- 
diers even beg him to continue tlie siege when he offers 
to raise it because of the hardships they are enduring. 
Let them endure anything, they say, but failure ! 
" Moreover Caisar, when he would accost his legions 
one by one at their work, and would tell them that he 
would raise the siege if they could but ill bear their 
privations, was implored by all of them not to do that. 
They said that for many years under his command they 
had so well done their duty that they had undergone no 
disgrace, had never quitted their ground leaving aught 
unfinished," — except the subjugation of Britain they 
might perhaps have said, — ^' that they w^ould be now 
disgraced if they should raise a siege which had been 
commenced ; that they would rather bear all hardships 
than not avenge the Eoman citizens who had perished 
at Gcnabum by the perfidy of the Gauls." Csesar puts 
these words into the mouths of his legionaries, and 
as we read them we believe that such was the existing 
spirit of the men. Csesar's soldiers now had learned 
better than to cry because they v/ere afraid of their 
enemies. 

Then we hear that Yercingetorix is in trouble with 
the Gauls. The Gauls, when they see the Eomans so 
near them, think that they are to be betrayed into 
Caesar's hands, and they accuse their leader. But 
Yercingetorix makes them a speech, and brings up cer- 
tain Roman prisoners to give evidence as to the evil 
condition of the Roman army. Yercingetorix swears 
that these prisoners are soldiers from the Roman 
legions, and so settles that little trouble ; but Caesar, 



THE FATE OF AVARICUM. 105 

defending his legionaries, asserts that the men so 
used were simply slaves. 

. Vercingetorix is in his camp at some little distance 
from Avaricum, while Caesar is determined to take the 
city. We have the description of the siege, concise, 
graphic, and clear. We are told of the nature of the 
walls ; how the Gauls were good at mining and 
countermining ; how they flung hot pitch and hoiling 
grease on the invaders ; how this was kept up, one 
Gaul after another stepping on to the hody of his 
dying comrade ; how at last they resolved to quit the 
town and make their way by night to the camp of 
Vercingetorix, hut were stopped by the prayers of their 
own women, who feared Caesar's mercies j — and how at 
last the city was taken. We cannot but execrate 
Caesar when he tells us coolly of the result. They 
were all killed. The old, the women, and the chil- 
dren, perished altogether, slaughtered by the Eomans. 
Out of forty thousand inhabitants, Caesar says that 
about eight hundred got safely to Vercingetorix. Of 
course we doubt the accuracy of Caesar's figures when 
he tells us of the numbers of the Gauls ; but we do not 
doubt that but a few escaped, and that all but a few 
were slaughtered. When, during the last campaign, 
the Gauls at Genabum (Orleans) had determined on 
revolt against Caesar, certain Eoman traders — usurers 
for the most part, who had there established them- 
selves — ^were killed. Caesar gives this as the cause, and 
sufficient cause, for the wholesale slaughter of women 
and childreji ! One reflects that not otherwise, per- 
haps, could lie have conquered Gaul, and that Gaul 



106 THE WAR IN OAUL.— SEVENTH BOOK. 

had to be conquered ; T)ut we cannot for tlie moment 
but abhor the man capable of such work. Yercinget- 
orix bears his loss bravely. He reminds the Gauls 
that had they taken his advice the city would have 
been destroyed by themselves and not defended ; he 
tells them that all the states of Gaul are now ready 
to join him ; and he prepares to fortify a camp after 
the Eoman fashion. Hitherto the Gauls have fought 
either from behind the walls of towns, or out in the 
open country without other protection than that of 
the woods and hills. 

Then there is another episode with those unsatisfac- 
tory ^dui. There is a quarrel among them who shall 
be their chief magistrate, — a certain old man or a cer- 
tain young man, — and they send to Caesar to settle the 
question. Caesar's hands are very full ; but, as he 
explains, it is essential to him that his allies shall be 
kept in due subordinate order. He therefore absolutely 
goes in person to one of their cities, and decides that 
the young man shall be the chief magistrate. But, 
as he seldom does anything for nothing, he begs that 
ten thousand ^duan infantry and all the ^duan cav- 
alry may be sent to help him against Vercingetorix. 
The ^dui have no alternative but to comply. Their 
compliance, however, is not altogether of a friendly 
nature. The old man wdio has been put out of the 
magistracy gets hold of the iEduan general of the 
forces ; and the ^duan army takes the field, — to help, 
not Caesar, but Vercingetorix ! There is a large amount 
of lying and treachery among the ^dui, and of course 
tidings of what is going on are carried to Caesar. Over 



THE SIEGE OF GERGOVIA. 107 

and over again these people deceive him, betray him, 
and endeavour to injure his cause ; hut he always for- 
gives them, or pretends to forgive them. It is his 
policy to show to the Gauls how great can he the 
friendship and clemency of Csesar. If he would have 
burned the ^Edui and spared Bourges we should have 
liked him better ; but then, had he done so, he would 
not have been Caesar. 

While Caesar is thus troubled with his allies, he has 
trouble enough also with his enemies. Vercingetorix, 
with his followers, after that terrible reverse at Avari- 
cum, — Bourges, — goes into his own country which we 
know as Auvergne, and there encamps his army on a 
high hiU A\dth a flat top, called Gergovia. All of us 
who have visited Clermont have probably seen the 
hill. Yercingetorix makes three camps for his army 
on the hill, and the Arverni have a town there. The 
Gaul has so placed himself that there shall be a river 
not capable of being forded between himself and Caesar. 
But the Eoman general makes a bridge and sets him- 
self down with his legions before Gergovia. The limits 
of this little work do not admit of any detailed descrip- 
tion of Caesar's battles ; but perhaps there is none more 
interesting than this siege. The three Gaulish camps 
are taken. The women of Gergovia, thinking that 
their town is taken also, leaning over the walls, implore 
mercy from the Eomans, and beg that, they may not 
be treated as have the women of Avaricum. Certain 
leading Eoman soldiers absolutely climb up into the 
town. The reader also thinks that Caesar is to prevail, 
as he always does prevail. But he is beaten back, and 



108 THE WAR IN OAUL.— SEVENTH BOOK. 

has to give it up. On this occasion the gallant 
Vercingetorix is the master of the day, and Caesar 
excuses himself by explaining how it was that his 
legions were defeated through the rash courage of his 
own men, and not by bad generalship of his own. 
And it probably was so. The reader always feels in- 
clined to believe the Commentary, even when he may 
most dislike Caesar. Caesar again makes his bridge 
over the river, the Allier, and retires into the territory 
of his doubtful friends the ^dui. He tells us himself 
that in that affair he lost 700 men and 46 officers. 

It seems that at this time Caesar with his whole army 
must have been in great danger of being destroyed by 
the Gauls. Why Vercingetorix did not follow up his 
victory and prevent Caesar from escaping over the Allier 
is not explained. ]^o doubt the requirements of war- 
fare were not known to the Gaul as they were to the 
Eoman. As it was, Caesar had enough to do to save 
his army. The ^dui, of course, turned against him 
again. All his stores and treasure and baggage were 
at ^NToviodunum, — Nevers, — a town belonging to the 
^dui. These are seized by his allies, who destroy all 
that they cannot carry away, and Caesar's army is in 
danger of being starved. Everything has been eaten 
up where he is, and the Loire, without bridges or fords, 
was between him and a country where food was to be 
found. He does cross the river, the ^dui having sup- 
posed that it would be impossible. He finds a spot in 
which his men can wade across with their shoulders 
just above the waters. Bad as the spot is for fording, 
in his great difficulty he makes the attemjit and accom- 
plishes it. 



THE REVOLT OF THE JEBTJh 109 

Then there is an account of a battle which Labienus 
is obliged to fight up near Paris. He has four legions 
away with him there, and having heard of Caesar's mis- 
fortune at Gergovia, knows how imperative it is that 
he should join his chief. He fights his battle and 
wins it, and Caesar tells the story quite as enthusias- 
tically as though he himself had been the conqueror. 
When this difficulty is overcome, Labienus comes 
south and joins his Imperator. 

The Gauls are still determined to drive Caesar out 
of their country, and with this object call together a 
great council at Bibracte, which was the chief town 
of the iEdui. It was afterwards called Augustodu- 
num, which has passed into the modern name Autun. 
At this meeting, the ^dui, who, having been for some 
years past bolstered up by Eome, think themselves 
the first of all the Gauls, demand that the chief 
authority in the revolt against Eome, — now that they 
have revolted, — shall be intrusted to them. An 
^duan chief, they think, should be the commander- 
in-chief in this war against Rome. Who has done so 
much for the revolt as the ^dui, who have thrown 
over their friends the Romans, — now for about the 
tenth time % But Yercingetorix is unanimously elected, 
and the ^duan chiefs are disgusted. Then there is an- 
other battle. Yercingetorix thinks that he is strong 
enough to attack the enemy as Caesar is going down 
south towards the Province. Caesar, so says Yercinget- 
orix, is in fact retreating. And, indeed, it seems that 
Caesar was retreating. But the Gauls are beaten and 
fly, losing some three thousand of their men who are 
slaughtered in the fight. Yercingetorix shuts him- 



110 THE WAR IN GAUL.— SEVENTH BOOK, 

self up in a town called Alesia, and Caesar prepares for 
another siege. 

The taking of Alesia is the last event told in Caesar's 
Commentary on the Gallic War, and of all the stories 
told, it is perhaps the most heartrending. Civilisation 
was never forwarded in a fashion more terrible than that 
which prevailed at this siege. Yercingetorix with his 
whole army is forced into the town, and Caesar sur- 
rounds it with ditches, works, lines, and ramparts, so 
that no one shall be able to escape from it. Before this 
is completed, and while there is yet a way open of leav- 
ing the town, the Gaulish chief sends out horsemen, 
who are to go to all the tribes of Gaul, and convene the 
lighting men to that place, so that by their numbers 
they may raise the siege and expel the Eomans, We 
find that these horsemen do as they are bidden, and 
that a great Gaulish conference is held, at which it is 
decided how many men shall be sent by each tribe. 
Yercingetorix has been very touching in his demand 
that all this shall be done quickly. He has food for 
the town for thirty days. Probably it may be stretched 
to last a little longer. Then, if the tribes are not true 
to him, he and the eighty thousand souls he has with 
him must perish. The horsemen make good their 
escape from the town, and Yercingetorix, with his eighty 
thousand hungry souls around him, prepares to wait. 
It seems to us, when we think what must have been 
the Gallia of those days, and when we remember how 
far thirty days would now be for sufficing for such 
a purpose, that the difficulties to be overcome were 
insuperable. But Csesar says that the tribes did send 
their men, each tribe sending the number demanded, 



ii 



\ 



THE SIEGE OF ALE SI A. Ill 

except the Bellovaci, — the men of Beauvais, — who 
declared that they chose to wage war on their own 
account; but even they, out of kindness, lent two 
thousand men. Caesar explains that even his own 
best friends among the Gauls, — among whom was 
one Commius, who had been very useful to him in 
Britain, and whom he had made king over his own 
tribe, the Atrebates, — at this conjuncture of affairs 
felt themselves bound to join the national move- 
ment. This Commius had even begged for the two 
thousand men of Beauvais. So great, says Csesar, 
was the united desire of Gaul to recover Gallic liberty, 
that they were deterred from coming by no memory of 
benefits or of friendship. Eight thousand horsemen 
and two hundred and forty thousand footmen assembled 
themselves in the territories of the ^dui. Alesia was 
north of the ^^]dui, amidst the Lingones. This enor- 
mous army chose its generals, and marched off to 
Alesia to relievo Yercingetorix. 

But the thirty days were past, and more than past, 
and the men and women in Alesia were starving. ^No 
tidings ever had reached Alesia of the progress which 
was being made in the gathering of their friends. It 
had come to be very bad with tliem there. Some were 
talking of unconditional surrender. Others proposed 
to cut their way through the Eoman lines. Then one 
Critognatus had a suggestion to make, and Caesar 
gives us the words of his speech. It has been com- 
mon with the Greek and Latin historians to put 
speeches into the mouths of certain orators, adding 
the words when the matter has come within either 
their knowledge or belief. Csesar does not often 



112 THE WAR IN QAUL,— SEVENTH BOOK. 

thus risk Ms credibility; but on this occasion he does 
so. We have the speech of Critognatus, word for 
word. Of those who speak of surrender he thinks so 
meanly that he will not notice them. As to that cut- 
ting a way through the Eoman lines, which means 
death, he is of opinion that to endure misfortune is 
e^reater than to die. Many a man can die who cannot 
bravely live and suffer. Let them endure a little 
longer. Why doubt the truth and constancy of the 
tribes 1 Then he makes his suggestion. Let those 
who can fight, and are thus useful, — eat those who are 
useless and cannot fight ; and thus live till the levies 
of all Gaul shall have come to their succour ! Those 
who have authority in Alesia cannot quite bring them- 
selves to this, but they do that which is horrible in 
the next degree. They will turn out of the town all 
the old, all the weak, and all the women. After that, 
— if that will not suffice, — then they will begin to eat 
each .other. The town belongs, or did belong, to a 
people called the Mandubii, — not to Yercingetorix or 
his tribe ; and the Mandubii, with their children and 
women, arc compelled to go out. 

But ^.j^.Lher shall they go ? Caesar has told us that 
there was a margin of ground between his lines and 
the city wall, — an enclosed space from which there 
was no egress except into Caesar's camp or into the 
besieged town. Here stand these weak ones, — aged 
men, women, and children, — and implore Caesar to 
receive them into his camp, so that they may pass out 
into the open country. There they stood as suppli- 
cants, on that narrow margin of ground between two 
armies. Their own friends, having no food for them, 



TEE SIEGE OF ALESIA, 113 

had expelled them from their own homes. "Would 
Caesar have mercy 1 Caesar, with a wave of his hand, 
declines to have mercy. He tells ns what he himself 
decides to do in eight words. "At Caesar, depositis 
in vallo custodiis, recipi prohibebat." "But Caesar, 
having placed guards along the rampart, forbade that 
they should be received.' ' We hear no more of them, 
but we know that they perished ! 

The collected forces of Gaul do at last come up 
to attempt the rescue of Yercingetorix, — and indeed 
they come in time ; were they able by coming to do 
anything ? They attack Caesar in his camp, and a great 
battle is fought beneath the eyes of the men in Alesia. 
But Caesar is very careful that those who now are 
hemmed up in the town shall not join themselves to 
the Gauls who had spread over the country all around 
him. We hear how during the battle Caesar comes up 
himself, and is known by the colour of his cloak„ We 
again feel, as we read his account of the fighting, that 
the Gauls nearly win, and that they ought to win. 
But at last they are driven headlong in flight, — all the 
levies of all the tribes. The Eomans kill very many : 
were not the labour of killing too much for them, they 
might kill all. A huge crowd, however, escapes, and 
the men scatter themselves back into their tribes. 

On the next day Yercingetorix yields himself and 
the city to Caesar. During the late battle he and his 
men shut up within the walls have been> ^mply spec- 
tators of the fighting. Caesar is sitting iii his Imes 
before his camp ; and there the chieftains, with Yer- 
cingetorix at their head, are brought up to him. Plu- 

A. c. vol. iv. H 



114 THE WAR IN OAVL.— SEVENTH BOOK. 

tarch tells us a story of the chieftain riding np before 
Csesar, to deliver himself, with gilt armour, on a grand 
horse, caracolling and prancing. We cannot fancy that 
any horse out of Alesia, could, after the siege, have 
been fit for such holiday occasion. The horses out of 
Vercingetorix's stables had probably been eaten many 
days since. Then Csesar again forgives the ^dui; but 
Yercingetorix is taken as a prisoner to Eome, is kept a 
prisoner for six years, is then led in Csesar^s Triumph, 
and, after these six years, is destroyed, as a victim 
needed for Csesar's glory, — that so honour may be 
done to Csesar ! Csesar puts his army into winter quar- 
ters, and determines to remain himself in Gaul during 
the winter. When his account of these things reaches 
Eome, a " supplication" of twenty days is decreed in 
his honour. 

Tliis is the end of Csesar's Commentary " De Eello 
Gallico." The war was carried on for two years more ; 
and a memoir of Csesar's doings during those two years, 
— B.C. 51 and 50, — was written, after Csesar's manner, 
by one Aulus Hirtius. There is no pretence on the 
writer's part that this was the work of Csesar's hands, 
as in a short preface he makes an author's apology for 
venturing to continue what Csesar had begun. The 
most memorable circumstance of Csesar's warfares told 
in this record of two campaigns is the taking of TJxel- 
lodunum, a town in the south-west of Erance, the site 
of which is not now known. Csesar took the town by 
cutting off the water, and then horribly mutilated the 
inhabitants who had dared to defend their own hearths. 



I 



THE COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 115 

"Caesar/' says this historian, "knowing well that his 
clemency was acknowledged by all men, and that he need 
not fear that any punishment inflicted by him would 
be attributed to the cruelty of his nature, perceiving 
also that he could never know what might be the end 
of his policy if such rebellions should continue to break 
out, thought that other Gauls should be deterred by 
the fear of punishment." So he cut of the hands of all 
those who had borne arms at Uxellodununi, and turned 
the maimed Avretches adrift upon the world ! And 
his apologist adds, that he gave them life so that the 
punishment of these wicked ones, — who had fought 
for their liberty, — might be the more manifest to the 
world at large ! This was perhaps the crowning act of 
Caesar's cruelty, — defended, as we see, by the character 
he had achieved for clemency ! 

Soon after this Gaul was really subdued, and then 
we hear the first preparatory notes of the coming 
civil war. An attempt was made at Rome to ruin 
Coesar in his absence. One of the consuls of the year, — 
B.C. 51, — endeavoured to deprive him of the remainder 
of the term of his proconsulship, and to debar him 
from seeking the suffrages of the people for the consul- 
ship in his absence. Two of his legions are also de- 
manded from him, and are surrendered by him. The 
order, indeed, is for one legion from him and one from 
Pompeius ; but he has had with him, as the reader will 
remember, a legion borrowed from Pompeius ; — and 
thus in fact Caesar is called upon to give up two legions. 
And he gives them up, — not being as yet quite ready 
to pass the Eubicon, 



CHAPTER TX. 

FIRST BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR. — C^SAE CROSSES THE RURI- 
CON.— FOLLOWS POMPEY TO BRUNDUSIUM. — AND CONQUERS 
AFRANIUS IN SPAIN. — B.C. 49. 

CiESAR now gives us his history of that civil war in 
which he and Pompej contended for the mastery over 
Rome and the Eepublic. In his first Commentary he had 
recorded his campaigns in Ganl, — campaigns in which 
he reduced tribes which were, if not hostile, at any rate 
foreign, and by his success in which he carried on and 
maintained the potency, traditions, and purport of the 
Roman Republic. It was the ambition of the Roman 
to be master of the known world. In his ideas no 
more of the world was really known than had become 
Roman, and any extension to the limits of this world 
could only be made by the addition of so-called barbar- 
ous tribes to the number of Roman subjects. In reduc- 
ing Ganl, therefore, and in fighting with the Germans, 
and in going over to Britain, Caesar was doing that which 
all good Romans Avished to see done, and was rivalling 
in the West the great deeds which Pompey had accom- 
plished for the Republic in the East. In l,his second 
Commentary he is forced to deal with a subject which 
must have been less gratifying to Roman readers. He 



CORRUPTION IN ROME. 117 

relates to us the victories which he won with Eoman 
legions over other legions equally Eoman, and by which 
he succeeded in destroying the liberty of the Kepublic. 

It must be acknowledged on Csesar's behalf that 
in truth liberty had fallen in Rome before Caesar's 
time. Power had produced wealth, and wealth had 
produced corruption. The tribes of Eome were 
bought and sold at the various elections, and a few 
great oligarchs, either of this faction or of that, divided 
among themselves the places of trust and honour and 
power, and did so with hands ever open for the grasp- 
ing of public wealth. An honest man with clean 
hands and a conscience, with scruples and a love of 
country, became unfitted for public employment. Cato 
in these days was simply ridiculous ; and even 
Cicero, though he was a trimmer, was too honest for 
the times. Laws were WTested from their purposes, and 
the very Tribunes^ of the people had become the worst 
of tyrants. It was necessary, perhaps, that there 
should be a master; — so at least Caesar thought. He 
had, no doubt, seen this necessity during all these 
years of fighting in Gaul, and had resolved that he 
would not be less than First in the new order of things. 
So he crossed the Eubicon. 

The reader of this second Commentary will find it 
less alluring than the first. There is less in it of ad- 
venture, less of new strange life, and less of that sound, 

* The Tribunes of the people were officers elected annually to 
act on behalf of the people as checks on the magistracy of the 
Republic, and were endowed with vast powers, which they were 
presumed to use for the protection of liberty. But the office of 
Tribune had become degraded to party purposes, as had every 
other office of the state. 



118 THE CIVIL WAR, —FIRST BOOK, 

liealtliy, joyous feeling which sprang from a thorough 
conviction on Caesar's part that in crushing the Gauls 
he was doing a thoroughly good thing. To us, and 
our way of thinking, his doings in Gaul were stained 
with terrible cruelty. To him and to Ins Eomaus they 
were foul with no such stain. How other lioman con- 
querors acted to other conquered peoples we may learn 
from the fact, that Caesar obtained a character for great 
mercy by his forbearance in Gaul. He always writes 
as though he were free from any sting of conscience, 
as he tells us of the punishments which policy called 
upon him to inflict. But as he writes of these civil 
wars, there is an absence of this feeling of perfect self- 
satisfaction, and at the same time he is much less cruel. 
Hecatombs of Gauls, whether men or women or chil- 
dren, he could see burned or drowned or starved, mu- 
tilated or tortured, without a shudder. He could give 
the command for such operations with less remorse 
than we feel when we order the destruction of a litter 
of undesirable puppies. But he could not bring him- 
self to slay Eoman legionaries, even in fair fighting, 
with anything like self-satisfaction. In this he was 
either soft-hearted or had a more thorough feeling of 
country than generals or soldiers who have fought in 
civil contests since his time have shown. In the Wars 
of the Roses and in those of Cromwell we recognise no 
such feeling. The American generals w^ere not so 
restrained. But Caesar seems to have valued a Eoman 
legionary more than a tribe of Gauls. 

JSTevertheless he crossed the Rubicon. We have 
all heard of this crossing of the Rubicon, but Caesar 
Bays nothing about it. The Rubicon was a little 



CJSSAR CROSSES THE RUBICON. 119 

river, now almost if not altogether unknown, running 
into the Adriatic between Ravenna and Ariminum, — 
Eimini, — and dividing the provinces of so-called Cis- 
alpine Gaul from the territory under the immediate 
rule of the magistracy of Eome. Caesar was, so to 
say, at home north of the Rubicon. He was in his 
own province, and had all things under his command. 
But he was forbidden by the laws even to enter the 
territory of Rome proper while in the command of a 
Roman province ; and therefore, in crossing the Rubi- 
con, he disobeyed the laws, and put himself in opposition 
to the constituted authorities of the city. It does not ' 
appear, however, that very much was thought of this, 
or that the passage of the river was in truth taken as 
the special sign of Caesar's purpose, or as a deed that 
was irrevocable in its consequences. There are vari- 
ous pretty stories of Caesar's hesitation as he stood on 
the brink of the river, doubting whether he would 
plunge the world into civil war. We are told how a 
spirit appeared to him and led him across the water 
with martial music, and how Caesar, declaring that the 
die was cast, went on and crossed the fatal stream. 
But all this was fable, invented on Caesar's behalf by 
Romans who came after Caesar. Caesar's purpose was, 
no doubt, well understood when he brought one of 
his legions down into that corner of his province, but 
offers to treat with him on friendly terms were made 
by Pompey and his party after he had established 
; himself on the Roman side of the river. 

When the civil war began, Caesar had still, accord- 
ing to the assignment made to him, two years and a 
half left of his allotted period of government in tho 



120 THE CIVIL WAR.— FIRST BOOK, 

three provinces ; but his victories and his power had 
been watched with anxious eyes from Eome, and the 
Senate had attempted to decree that he should be 
recalled. Pompey was no longer Caesar's friend, nor 
did Ciesar expect his friendship. Pompey, who had 
lately played his cards but badly, and must have felt 
that he had played them badly, had been freed from 
his bondage to Caesar by the death of Crassus, the 
third triumvir, by the death of Julia, Caesar's daugh- 
ter, and by the course of things in Eome. It had 
been an unnatural alliance arranged by Caesar with 
the view of clipping his rival's wings. The fortunes 
of Pompey had hitherto been so bright, that he also 
had seemed to be divine. While still a boy, he had 
commanded and conquered, women had adored him, 
the soldiers had worshipped him. Sulla had called 
him the Great ; and, as we are told, had raised his 
hat to him in token of honour. He had been allowed 
the glory of a Triumph while yet a youth, and had tri- 
umphed a second time before he had reached middTe 
life. He had triumphed again a third time, and the 
three Triumphs had been won in the three quarters of 
the globe. In all things he had been successful, and in 
all things hai)py. He had driven the swarming pirates 
from every harbour in the Mediterranean, and had 
filled Eome with corn. He had returned a conqueror 
with his legions from the East, and had dared to dis- 
band them, that he might live again as a private citi- 
zen. And after that, when it was thought necessary that 
the city should be saved, in her need, from the factions 
of her own citizens, he had been made sole consuL 
It is easier now to understand the character of Pom- 



( 



POMPETS CEARACTEP 121 

pey than the position which, by his unvaried suc- 
cesses, he had made for himself in the minds both of 
the nobles and of the people. Even up to this time, 
even after Caesar's wars in Gaul, there was something 
of divinity hanging about Pompey, in which the 
Eomans of the city trusted. He had been imperious, 
but calm in manner and self-possessed, — allowing no 
one to be his equal^ but not impatient in making 
good his claims ; grand, handsome, lavish when policy 
required it, rapacious when much was needed, never 
self-indulgent, heartless, false, cruel, politic, ambitious, 
very brave, and a Eoman to the backbone. But he 
had this failing, this weakness ; — when the time for 
the last struggle came, he did not quite know what 
it was that he desired to do; he did not clearly see 
his future. The things to be done were so great, that 
he had not ceased to doubt concerning them when the 
moment came in which doubt was fatal. Caesar saw 
it all, and never doubted. That little tale of Caesar 
standing on the bridge over the Rubicon pondering as 
to his future course, — divided between obedience and 
rebellion, — is very pretty. But there was no such 
pondering, and no such division. Caesar knew very 
well what he meant and what he wanted. 

Caesar is full of his wrongs as he begins his second 
narrative. He tells us how his ow^n friends are 
silenced in the Senate and in the city ; how his ene- 
mies, Scipio, Cato, and Lentulus the consul, prevail ; 
how no one is allowed to say a word for him. " Pom- 
pey himself," he says, " urged on by the enemies of 
Caesar, and because he was unwilling that any one 
should equal himself in honour, had turned himself 



122 THE CIVIL WAR-FIRST BOOK, 

altogether from Caesar's friendship, and had gone hack 
to the fellowship of their common enemies, — enemies 
whom he himself had created for Caesar during the 
time of their alliance. At the same time, conscious of 
the scandal of those two legions which he had stopped 
on their destined road to Asia and Syria and taken into 
his own hand, he was anxious that the question should 
be referred to arms." Those two legions are very griev- 
ous to Csesar. One was the legion which, as we re- 
member, Pompey had given up to friendship, — and the 
Eepublic. When, in the beginning of these contests 
between the two rivals, the Senate had decided on 
weakening each by demanding from each a legion, 
Pompey had asked Caesar for the restitution of that 
which he had so kindly lent. Caesar, too proud to 
refuse payment of the debt, had sent that to his 
former Iriend, and had also sent another legion, as de- 
manded, to the Senate. They were required nominally 
for service in the East, and now were in the hands 
of him who had been Caesar's friend but had become 
his enemy. It is no wonder that Caesar talks of the 
infamy or scandal of the two legions ! He repeats 
his complaint as to the two legions again and again. 

In the month of January Caesar was at Ravenna, 
just north of the Rubicon, and in his own province. 
Messages j)ass between him and the Senate, and he 
proposes his terms. The Senate also proposes its terms. 
He must lay clown his arms, or he will be esteemed an 
enemy by the Republic. All Rome is disturbed. The 
account is Caesar's account, but we imagine that Rome 
was disturbed. *' Soldiers are recruited over all Italy; 
arms are demanded, taxes are levied on the municipal- 



THE RUBICON IS PASSED. 123 

ities, and money is taken from the sacred shrines; all 
laws divine and human are disregarded." Then Caesar 
explains to his soldiers his wrongs, and the crimes of 
Pompey. He tells them how they, under his guid- 
ance, have been victorious, how under him they have 
'' pacified" all Gaul and Germany, and he calls upon 
them to defend him who has enabled them to do such 
great things. He has but one legion with him, but 
that legion declares that it will obey him, — him and 
the tribunes of the people, some of whom, acting on 
Caesar's side, have come over from Eome to Eavenna. 
We can appreciate the spirit of this allusion to the 
tribunes, so that there may seem to be still some link 
between Caesar and the civic authorities. "When the 
soldiers have expressed their goodwill, he goes to 
Ariminum, and so the Rubicon is passed. 

There are still more messages. Caesar expresses 
himself as greatly grieved that he should be subjected 
to so much suspense, nevertheless he is willing to suffer 
anything for the Eepublic; — "omnia pati reipublicae 
causa." Only let Pompey go to his province, let the 
legions in and about Eome be disbanded, let all the 
old forms of free government be restored, and panic 
• be abolished, and then, — when that is done, — all diffi- 
culties may be settled in a few minutes' talking. The 
consuls and Pompey send back word that if Caesar 
will go back into Gaul and dismiss his army, Pompey 
shall go at once to Spain. But Pompey and the 
^ consuls with their troops will not stir till Caesar shall 
^L have given security for his departure. Each demands 
^B that the other shall first abandon his position. Of 
^H course all these messages mean nothing. 

I 



124 THE CIVIL WAR.— FIRST BOOK, 

Caesar, complaining bitterly of injustice, sends a por- 
tion of his small army still farther into tlie Eoman 
territory. Marc Antony goes to Arezzo with five 
cohorts, and Caesar occupies three other cities with a 
cohort each. The marvel is that he was not attacked 
and driven back by Pompey. We may probably con- 
clude that the soldiers, though under the command 
of Pompey, were not trustworthy as against Caesar. 
As Caesar regrets his two legions, so no doubt do the 
two legions regret their commander. At any rate, the 
consular forces with Pompey and the consuls and a 
host of senators retreat southwards to Brundusium, — 
Brindisi, — intending to leave Italy by the port which 
we shall all use before long when we go eastwards. 
During this retreat, the first blood in the civil war is 
spilt at Corfinium, a town which, if it now stood at all, 
would stand in the Abruzzi. Caesar there is victor 
in a small engagement, and obtains possession of the 
town. The Pompeian officers whom he finds there he 
^sends away, and allows them even to carry with them 
money which he believes to have been taken from the 
public treasury. Throughout his route southward the 
soldiers of Pompey, — who had heretofore been his 
soldiers, — return to him. Pompey and the consuls 
still retreat, and still Caesar follows them, though 
Pompey had boasted, when first warned to beware of 
Caesar, that he had only to stamp upon Italian soil and 
legions would arise from the earth ready to obey him. 
He knows, however, that away from Eome, in her 
provinces, in Macedonia and Acbaia, in Asia and Cilicia, 
in Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa, in Mauritania and the 
two S pains, there are Roman legions which as yet 



POM FEY RETREATS. 125 

know no Caesar. It may be better for Pompey that 
he should stamp his foot somewhere out of Italy. At 
any rate he sends the obedient consuls and his attend- 
ant senators oyer to Dyrrachium in Ill}Tia with a part 
of his army, and follows with the remainder as soon as 
Caesar is at his heels. Caesar makes an effort to inter- 
cept him and his fleet, but in that he fails. Thus 
Pompey deserts Rome and Italy, — and neyer again 
sees the imperial city or the fair land. 

Caesar explains to us why he does not follow his 
enemy and endeayour at once to put an end to the 
struggle. Pompey is proyided with shipping and he 
is not; and he is aware that the force of Pome lies in 
her proyinces. Moreover, Rome may be starved by 
Pompey, unless he, Caesar, can take care that the corn- 
growing countries, which are the granaries of Rome, 
are left free for the use of the city. He must make 
sure of the two Gauls, and of Sardinia, and of Sicily, 
of Africa too, if it may be possible. He must win to 
his cause the two Spains, of which at least the north- 
ern province was at present devoted to Pompey. He 
sends one lieutenant to Sardinia with a legion, another 
to Sicily with three legions, — and from Sicily over 
into Africa. These provinces had been allotted to 
partisans of Pompey; but Caesar is successful with 
them all. To Cato, the virtuous man, had been as- 
signed the government of Sicily; but Cato finds no 
Pompeian army ready for his use, and, complaining 
bitterly that he has been deceived and betrayed by the 
head of his faction, runs away, and leaves his province 
to Caesar's officers. Cassar determines that he himself 
wiU carry the war into Spain. 



126 THE CIVIL WAR.—FIRST BOOK. 

Eut lie found it necessary first to go to Eome, and 
Caesar, in his account of what he did there, hardly tells 
us the whole truth. We quite go along with him 
when he explains to us that, having collected what 
sort of a Senate he could, — for Pompey had taken away 
with him such senators as he could induce to follow 
him, — and having proposed to this meagre Senate that 
ambassadors should be sent to Pompey, the Senate 
accepted his suggestion ; but that nobody could be in- 
duced to go on such an errand. Pompey had already 
declared that all who remained at Eome were his ene- 
mies. And it may probably be true that Csesar, as he 
says, found a certain tribune of the people at Rome 
who opposed him in all that he was doing, though we 
should imagine that the opposition was not violent. 
But his real object in going to Rome was to lay hand 
on the treasure of the Republic, — the sanctius serari- 
um, — which was kept in the temple of Saturn for special 
emergencies of State. That he should have taken this 
we do not wonder ; — but we do wonder that he should 
have taken the trouble to say that he did not do so. 
He professes that he was so hindered by that vexatious 
tribune, that he could not accomplish the purposes for 
which he had come. But he certainly did take the 
money, and we cannot doubt but that he went to Rome 
especially to get it. 

Csesar, on his way to Spain, goes to Marseilles, 
which, under the name of Massilia, was at this time, 
as it is now, the most thriving mercantile port on the 
Mediterranean. It belonged to the province of Further 
Gaul, but it was in fact a colony of Greek traders. Its 
possession was now necessary to Caesar. The magi&- 



CjESAR touches at MARSEILLES. 127 

trates of the town, when called upon for their adhesion, 
gave a most sensible answer. They protest that they 
are very fond of Caesar, and very fond of Ponipey. They 
don't understand all these aifairs of Eorae, and regret 
that two such excellent men should quarrel. Tn the mean 
time they prefer to hold their own town. Cscsar speaks 
of this decision as an injury to hire self, and is insti^i^^ated 
by such wrongs against him to besiege the city, which 
he does both by land and sea, leaving officers there for 
the purpose, and going on himself to Spain. 

At this time all Spain was held by three officers, de- 
voted to the cause of Pompey, though, from what has 
gone before, it is clear that Caesar fears nothing from 
the south. Afranius commanded in the north and east, 
holding the southern spurs of the Pyrenees. Petreius, 
who was stationed in Lusitania, in the south-west, 
according to agreement, hurries up to the assistance of 
Afranius as soon as Caesar approaches. The Pompeian 
and Caesarian armies are brought into close quarters in 
the neighbourhood of Ilerda (Lerida), on the little river 
Sicoris, or Segre, which runs into the Ebro. They are 
near the mountains here, and the nature of the fight- 
ing is controlled by the rapidity and size of the rivers, 
and the inequality of the ground. Caesar describes 
the campaign with great minuteness, imparting to it 
a wonderful interest by the clearness of his narrative. 
Afranius and Petreius hold the town of Ilerda, which 
is full of provisions. Caesar is very much pressed by 
want, as the corn and grass have not yet grown, and 
the country supplies of the former year are almost ex- 
hausted. So great are his difficulties, that tidings reach 
Rome that Afranius has conquered him. Hearing 



128 THE CIVIL WAR.— FIRST BOOK, 

this, many who were still clinging to the city, doubtful 
as to the side they would take, go away to Pompey. 
But Caesar at last manages to make Ilerda too hot for 
the Pompeian generals. He takes his army over one 
river in coracles, suoti as he had seen in Britain ; he 
turns the course of another ; fords a third, breaking the 
course of the stream by the bulk of his horses ; and 
bridges a fourth. Afranius and Petreius find that 
they must leave Ilerda, and escape over the Ebro 
among the half-barbarous tribe further south, and make 
their way, if possible, among the Celtibri, — getting 
out of Aragon into Castile, as the division was made 
in after-ages. Csesar gives us as one reason, for this 
intended march on the part of his enemies, that Pompey 
was well known by those tribes, but that the name 
of Caesar was a name as yet obscure to the barbarians. 
It was not, however, easy for Afranius to pass over the 
Ebro without Caesar's leave, and Caesar will by no means 
give him leave. He intercepts the Pompeians, and now 
turns upon them that terrible engine of want from which 
he had suffered so much. He continues so to drive them 
about, still north of the Ebro, that they can get at no 
water; and at last they are compelled to surrender. 

During the latter days of this contest the Afranians, 
as they are called — Eoman legionaries, as are the soldiers 
of Caesar — fraternise with their brethren in Caesar's 
camp, and there is something of free intercourse be- 
tween the two Koman armies. The upshot is that the 
soldiers of Afranius resolve to give themselves up to 
Caesar, bargaining, however, that their own generals 
shall be secure. Afranius is willing enough; but his 



CJESAR IN THE NORTH OF SPAIN. 129 

brother-general, Petreius, with more of the Eoman at 
heart, will not hear of it. We shall hear hereafter the 
strange fate of this Petreius. He stops the conspiracy 
with energy, and forces from his own men, and even from 
Afranius, an oath against surrender. He orders that all 
Caesar's soldiers found in their camp shall be killed, and, 
as Caesar tells us, brings back the affair to the old form 
of war. But it is all of no avail. The Afranians are so 
driven by the want of water, that the two generals are at 
last compelled to capitulate and lay down their arms. 

Five words which are used by Caesar in the descrip- 
tion of this affair give us a strong instance of his con- 
ciseness in the use of words, and of the capability for 
conciseness which the Latin language affords. *'Pre- 
mebantur Afraniani pabulatione, aquabantur aegre." 
" The soldiers of Afranius were much distressed in the 
matter of forage, and could obtain water only with great 
difficulty." These twenty words translate those live 
which Caesar uses, perhaps with fair accuracy; but many 
more than twenty would probably have been used by 
any English historian in dealing with the same facts. 

Caesar treats his compatriots with the utmost gene- 
rosity. So many conquered Gauls he would have sold 
as slaves, slaughtering their leaders, or he would have 
cut off their hands, or have driven them down upon 
the river and have allowed them to perish in the 
waters. Eut his conquered foes are Eoman soldiers;, 
and he simply demands that the army of Afranius 
shall be disbanded, and that the leaders of it shall go, 
— whither they please. He makes them a speech in 
which he explains how badly they have treated him. 

A. c. vol. iv. I 



130 THE CIVIL WAR.— FIRST BOOK. 

Nevertheless he will hurt no one. He has home it 
all, and will hear it, patiently. Let the generals only 
leave the Province, and let the army which they have 
led he dishanded. He will not keep a soldier who 
does not wish to stay with him, and will even pay 
those whom Afranius has heen unahle to pay out of 
his own funds. Those who have houses and land in 
Spain may remain there. Those who have none he 
will first feed and afterwards take hack, if not to Italy, 
at any rate to the horders of Italy. The property 
which his own soldiers have taken from them in the 
chances of war shall he restored, and he out of his own 
pocket will compensate his own men. He performs 
his promise, and takes all those who do not choose to 
remain, to the hanks of the Yar, which divides the Pro- 
vince from Italy, and there sets them down, full, no 
douht, of gratitude to their conqueror. IN'ever was 
there such clemency,— or, we may say, hetter policy ! 
Caesar's whole campaign in Spain had occupied him 
only forty days. 

In the mean time Decimus Brutus, to whom we 
rememher that Caesar had given the command of the 
ships which he prepared against the Yeneti in the west 
of Gaul, and who was hereafter to he one of those who 
slew him in the Capitol, ohtains a naval victory over 
the much more numerous fleet of the Massilians. 
They had prepared seventeen hig ships, — "naves 
longae" they are called hy Caesar, — and of these 
Erutus either destroys or takes nine. In his next 
hook Caesar proceeds to tell us how things went on at 
Marseilles hoth hy sea and land after this afiair. 



CHAPTER X. 

SECOND BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR. — THE TAKING OF MAR- 

ISEILLES. — VARRO IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. — THE FATE 
OF CURIO BEFORE UTICA. — B.C. 49. 
In liis chronicle of the Gallic vrar, Caesar in each hook 
completed the narrative of a year's campaign. In 
treating of the civil war he devotes the first and 
second hooks to the doings of one year. There are 
three distinct episodes of the year's campaign narrated 
in the second ; — the taking of ^Marseilles, the suhju- 
gation of the sonthern province of Spain, — if that can 
he said to he suhjugated which gave itself up very 
readily, — and the destruction of a Eoman army in 
Africa under the hands of a harharian king. Eut of 
all Caesar's writings it is perhaps the least interesting, 
as it tells ns hut little of what Caesar did himself, — 
and in fact contains chieflj' Caesar's records of the 
doings of his lieutenants hy sea and land. 

He hegins hy telling us of the enormous exertions 
K made hoth hy the hesiegers and hy the hesieged at ^las- 
silia, which town Avas now held by Domitius on the 
part of Pompey, — to supplement whom at sea a cer- 
tain Nasidius was sent with a large fleet. Young 



132 THE CIVIL WAR.— SECOND BOOK, 

Brutus, as will be rememberedj was attacking the har- 
bour on behalf of Csesar, and had already obtained a 
victory over the Massilians before JSTasidius came up ; 
and Trebonius, also on the part of Caesar, was besieg- 
ing the town from the land. This Decimus Brutus 
was one of those conspirators who afterwards conspired 
against Csesar and slew him, — and Trebonius was 
another of the number. The wise Greeks of the 
city, — more wise than fortunate, however, — had ex- 
plained to Caesar Avhen he first expressed his wish to 
have the town on his side, that really to them there 
was no difference between Pompey and Caesar, both of 
whom they loved with all their hearts, — but they had 
been compelled to become partisans of Pompey, the 
Pompeian general Domitius being the first to enter 
their town ; and now they find themselves obliged to 
fight as Pompeians in defence of their wealth and their 
homes. Thus driven by necessity, they fight well and do 
their very best to favour the side which we must hence- 
forward call that of the Republic as against an autocrat ; 
• — for, during this siege of Marseilles, Caesar had been 
appointed Dictator, and a law to that effect had been 
passed at Rome, wdiere the passing of such a law was no 
doubt easy enough in the absence of Pompey, of the con- 
suls, and of all the senators who were Pompey' s friends. 
The Massilians had now chosen their side, and they 
do their very best. We are told that the Caesarean 
troops, from the high ground on which Trebonius had 
placed his camp, could look down into the town, and 
could see '' how all the youth who had been left in the 
city, and all the elders with their children and wives, 



THE SIEGE OF MARSEILLES. 133 

and the sentinels of the city, either stretched their 
hands to heaven from the walls, or, entering the 
temples of the immortal gods, and throwing themselves 
before their sacred images, prayed that the heavenly 
powers would give them victory, l^or was there one 
among them who did not believe that on the result 
of that day depended all that they had," — namely, 
liberty, property, and life; for the Massilians, doubt- 
less, had heard of Avaricum, of Alesia, and of Uxello- 
dunum. " When the battle was begun," says Caesar, 
" the Massilians failed not at all in valour ; but, 
mindful of the lessons they had just received from their 
townsmen, fought with the belief that the present was 
their only opportunity of doing aught for their own pre- 
servation ; and that to those who should fall in battle, 
loss of life would only come a little sooner than to the 
others, w^ho would have to undergo the same fate, 
should the city be taken." Caesar, as he wrote this, 
doubtless thought of what he had done in Gaul when 
policy demanded from him an extremity of cruelty ; and, 
so writing, he enhanced the clemency with which, as he 
is about to tell us, he afterwards treated the Massilians. 
When the time came it did not suit him to depopulate 
a rich town, the trade of whose merchants was benefi- 
cial both to Eome and to the Province. He is about 
to tell us of his mercy, and therefore explains to us 
beforehand how little was mercy expected from him. 
We feel that every line he writes is weighed, though 
the time for such weighing must have been very short 
with one whose hands were so full as were always the 
hands of Caesar. 



134 THE CIVIL WAR.— SECOND BOOK. 

Nasidius, whom we may call Pompey*s admiral, 
was of no use at all. The Massilians, tempted by his 
coming, attack bravely the ship which bears the flag 
of young Erutus ; but young Brutus is too quick for 
them, and the unhappy Massilians run two of their 
biggest vessels against each other in their endeavour 
to pin that of the Csesarean admiral between them. 
The Massilian fleet is utterly dispersed. Five are 
sunk, four are taken : one gets off with Nasidius, who 
runs away, making no effort to fight : who has been 
sent there,— so Caesar hints, — by Pompey, not to give 
assistance, but only to pretend to give assistance. 
One ship gets back into the harbour with the sad 
tidings ; and the Massilians — despairing only for a 
moment at the first blush of the bad news — determine 
that their walls may still be defended. 

The town was very well supplied with such things 
as were needed for defence, the people being a provi- 
dent people, well instructed and civilised, with means 
at their command. We are told of great poles twelve 
feet long, with sharp iron heads to them, which the 
besiegers could throw with such force from the engines 
on their walls as to drive them through four tiers of 
the wicker crates or stationary shields which the Csesa- 
reans built up for their i:)rotection, — believing that no 
force could drive a weapon througli them. As we 
read of this we cannot but think of Armstrong and 
Whitfield guns, and iron plates, and granite batteries, 
and earthworks. These terrible darts, thrown from 
" balistse," are very sore upon the CaBsareans ; they 
therefore contrive an immense tower, so high that it 



THE SIEGE OF MARSEILLES, 135 

cannot be reached by any weapon, so built that no 
wood or material subject to fire shall be on the out- 
side, — which they erect story by story, of very great 
strength. And as they raise this step by step, each 
story is secured against fire and against the enemy. 
The reader, — probably not an engineer himself, — is 
disposed to think as he struggles through this minute 
description of the erection which Caesar gives, and 
endeavours to realise the Avay in which it is done, that 
Caesar must himself have served specially as an engineer. 
Eut in truth he was not at this siege himself, and had 
nothing to do with the planning of the tower, and 
must in this instance at least have got a written de- 
scription from his officer, — as he probably did before 
wheu he built the memorable bridge over the Rhine. 
And when the tower is finished, they make a long 
covered way or shed, — musculum or muscle Caesar calls 
it ', and with this they form for themselves a passage 
from the big tower to a special point in the walls of 
the town. This muscle is so strong with its sloping 
roof that notliing thrown upon it will break or burn it. 
The Massilians try tubs of fiaming pitch, and great frag- 
ments of rock ; but these simply slip to the ground, and 
are pulled away with long poles and forks. And the 
Caesareans, from the height of their great tower, have 
so terrible an advantage ! The Massilians cannot de- 
fend their wall, and a breach is made, or almost made. 
The Massilians can do no more. The very gods are 
against them. So they put on the habit of supplicants, 
and go forth to the conquerors. They will give their 
city to Caesar. Caesar is expected. Will Trebonius 



136 THE CIVIL WAR.— SECOND BOOK. 

be 90 good as to wait till Caesar comes % If Trebonius 
should proceed with his work so tliat the soldiers 
should absolutely get into the town, then ;— Trebonius 
knows very well what would happen then. A little 
delay cannot hurt. IsTothing shall be done till Caesar 
conies. As it happens, Caesar has already especially 
ordered that the city shall be spared ; and a kind of 
truce is made, to endure till Caesar shall come and 
take possession. Trebonius has a difficulty in keeping 
his soldiers from the plunder ; but he does restrain 
them, and besiegers and besieged are at rest, and wait 
for Caesar. 

But these Massilians are a crafty people. The 
Caesarean soldiers, having agreed to wait, take it 
easily, and simply aiQuse themselves in these days of 
waiting. When they are quite off their guard, and a 
high wind favours the scheme, the Massilians rush out 
and succeed in burning the tower, and the muscle, and 
the rampart, and the sheds, and all the implements. 
Even though the tower was built with brick, it burns 
freely, — so great is the wind. Then Trebonius goes to 
work, and..^jes it all again. Because there is no more 
wood left ,j , ^d about the camp, he makes a rampart 
of a new\,..iia, — hitherto unheard of, — with bricks. 
Doubtless the Caesarean soldiers had first to make the 
bricks, and we can imagine what were their feelings in 
reference to the Massilians. But however that may 
be, they work so well and so hard that the Massilians 
soon see that their late success is of no avail. N^othing 
is left to them. iN'either perfidy nor valour can avail 
them, and now again they give themselves up. They 



THE SIEGE OF MARSEILLES. 137 

are starved and suffering from pestilence, their fortifi- 
cations are destroyed, they have no hope of aid from 
without, — and now they give themselves up, — intend- 
ing no fraud. '* Sese dedere sine fraude constituunt." 
Domitius, the Pompeian general, manages to escape in 
a ship. He starts with three ships, but the one in 
which he himself sails alone escapes the hands of 
" young " Brutus. Surely now will Marseilles he 
treated with worse treatment than that which fell on ■ 
the Gaulish cities. But such is by no means Caesar's 
will. Caesar takes their public treasure and their 
ships, and reminding them that he spares them rather 
for their name and old character than for any merits 
of theirs shown towards him, leaves two legions among 
them, and goes to Eoine. At Avaricum, when the 
Gauls had fought to defend their own liberties, he had 
destro^^ec everybody ; — at Alesia he had decreed the 
death of every inhabitant when they had simply asked 
him leave to pass through his camp; — at Uxellodunum 
he had cui off the hands and poked out the eyes of 
Gauls who had dared to fight for their country. But 
the Gauls Avere barbarians whom it was n pessary that 
Caesar should pacify. The Massiliar re Greeks, 
and a civilised people, — and might be useful. 

Before coming on to Marseilles there had been r 
little more for Csesar to do in Spain, where, as was 
told in the last chapter, he had just compelled Afranius 
and Petreius to lay down their arms and disband their 
legions. Joined with them had been a third Pompeian 
general, one Varro, — a distinguished man, though not, 
perhaps, a great general, — of whom Caesar tells us that 



138 THE CIVIL WAR.— SECOND BOOK, 

with his Eoman policy he veered between Pompeian 
and Ci3esarean tactics till, unfortunately for himself, 
he declared for Pompey and the wrong side, when 
he heard that Afranius was having his own way in 
the neighbourhood of Lerida. But Varro is in the 
south of Spain, in Andalusia, — or Baetica, as it was 
then called, — and in this southern province of Spain 
it seems that Caesar's cause was more popular than 
that of Pompey. Caesar, at any rate, has but little 
difficulty with Yarro. The Pompeian officer is deserted 
by his legions, and gives himself up very quickly. 
Caesar does not care to tell us what he did with Varro, 
but we know that he treated his brother Eoman with 
the utmost courtesy. Varro was a very learned man, 
and a friend of Cicero's, and one who wrote books, and 
was a credit to Pome as a man of letters if not as a 
general. We are told that he wrote 490 volumes, and 
that he lived to be eighty-eight, — a fate very uncom- 
mon with Eomans who meddled with public affairs in 
these days. Caesar made everything smooth in the 
south of Spain, restoring the money and treasures 
which Varro had taken from the towns, and giving 
thanks to everybody. Then he went on over the 
Pyrenees to Marseilles, and made things smooth there. 
But in the mean time things were not at all smooth 
in Africa. The name of Africa was at this time given 
to a small province belonging to the Eepublic, lying to 
the east of JSTumidia, in which Carthage had stood 
when Carthage was a city, containing that promontory 
which juts out towards Sicily, and having TJtica as 
its Eoman capital. It has been already said that 



CAESAR IN THE SOUTH OF SPAIN. 139 

when Caesar determined to gain possession of certain 
provinces of the Eepublic before he followed Pompey 
across the Adriatic, he sent a lieutenant with three 
legions into Sicily, desiring him to go on to Africa as 
soon as things should have been arranged in the island 
after the Caesarean fashion. The Sicilian matter is 
not very troublesome, as Cato, the virtuous man, in 
whose hands the government of the island had been 
intrusted on behalf of the Eepublic, leaves it on the 
arrival of the Caesarean legions, complaining bitterly of 
Pompey's conduct. Then Caesar's lieutenant goes over 
to Africa with two legions, as commanded, proposing 
to his army the expulsion of one Attius Yarns, who 
had, according to Caesar's story, taken irregular pos- 
session of the province, keeping it on behalf of Pom- 
pey, but not allowing the governor appointed by the 
Eepublic so much as to put his foot on the shore. 
This lieutenant was a great favourite of Caesar, by 
name Curio, who had been elected tribune of the 
people just when the Senate was making its attempt to 
recall Caesar from his command in Gaul. In that 
emergency. Curio as tribune had been of service to 
Caesar, and Caesar loved the young man. He was one 
of those who, though noble by birth, had flung them- 
selves among the people, as Catiline had done and 
Clodius, — unsteady, turbulent, unscrupulous, vicious, 
needy, fond of pleasure, rapacious, but well educated, 
brave, and clever. Caesar himself had been such a 
man in his youth, and could easily forgive such faults 
in the character of one who, in addition to such virtues 
as have been named, possessed that farther and greater 



140 THE CIVIL WAR.— SECOND BOOK. 

virtue of loving Caesar. Caesar expected great things 
from Curio, and trusted him thoroughly. Curio, with 
many ships and his two legions, lands in Africa, and 
prepares to win the province for his great friend. He 
does obtain some little advantage, so that he is called 
" Imperator " by his soldiers, — a name not given to a 
general till he has been victorious in the field ; but it 
seems clear, from Caesar's telling of the story, that 
Curious own officers and own soldiers distrusted him, 
and were doubtful whether they would follow him, or 
'would take possession of the ships and return to Sicily ; 
— or would go over to Attius Varus, who had been their 
commander in Italy before they had deserted from 
Pompey to Caesar. A council of war is held, and there 
is much doubt. It is not only or chiefly of Attius 
Varus, their Eoman enemy, that they are afraid ; but 
there is Juba in their neighbourhood, the king of 
Numidia, who will certainly fight for Varus and 
against Curio. He is Pompey's declared friend, and 
equally declared as Caesar's foe. He has, too, special 
grounds of quarrel against Curio himself; and if he 
comes in person with his army, — bringing such an 
army as he can bring if he pleases, — it will certainly 
go badly with Curio, should Curio be distant from his 
camp. Then Curio, not content with his council of 
war, and anxious that his soldiers should support him 
in his desire to fight, makes a speech to the legion- 
aries. We must remember, of course, that Caesar gives 
us the words of this speech, and that Caesar must 
himself have put the words together. 

It is begun in the third person. He, — that is Curio, 



THE STORY OF CURIO. 141 

- bells the men how useful they were to Caesar at 
Corfinium, the town at which they went over from 
Pompey to Caesar. But in the second sentence he 
breaks into the first person and puts the very words 
into Curio's mouth. " For you and your services," he 
says, " were copied by all the towns ; nor is it without 
cause that Caesar thinks kindly of you, and the Pom- 
peians unkindly. For Pompey, having lost no battle, 
but driven by the result of your deed, fled from Italy. 
Me, whom Caesar holds most dear, and Sicily and 
Africa without which he cannot hold Eome and Italy, 
Caesar has intrusted to your honour. There are some 
who advise you to desert me, — for what can be more 
desirable to such men than that they at the same 
time should circumvent me, and fasten upon you a 
foul crime ] . . . . But you, — have you not heard 
of the things done by Caesar in Spain, — two armies 
beaten, two generals conquered, two provinces gained, 
and all this done in forty days from that on which 
Caesar first saw his enemy ? Can those who, uninjured, 
were unable to stand against him, resist him now that 
they are .conquered *? And ydfo, who followed Caesar 
when victory on his side was uncertain, now that 
fortune has declared herself, will you go over to the 
conquered side when you are about to realise the re- 
ward of your zeal *?.... But perhaps, though 
you love Caesar, you distrust me. I will not say much 
of my own deserts towards you, — which are indeed 
less as yet than I had wished or you had expected." 
Then, having thus declared that he will not speak of 
himself, he does venture to say a few words on the sub- 



/ 



142 THE CIVIL WAR^—l^ECOND BOOK, 

ject. ''But why should I pass over my own work, 
and the result that has been as yet achieved, and my 
own fortune in war 1 Is it displeasing to you that I 
brought over the whole army, safe, without losing a 
ship ? That, as I came, at my first onslaught, T should 
have dispersed the fleet of the enemy? That, in 
two days, I should have been twice victorious with 
my cavalry ; that I should have cut out two hundred 
transports from the enemy's harbour ; that I should 
have so harassed the enemy that neither by land nor 
sea could they get food to supply their wants 1 Will 
it please you to repudiate such fortune and such guid- 
ance, and to connect yourself with the disgrace at Cor- 
finium, the flight from Italy," — namely, Pompey'sflighl 
to Dyrrachium, — " the surrender of Spain, and the evils 
of this African war? I indeed have wished to be 
called Caesar's soldier, and you have called me your 
Imperator. If it repents you of having done so, I give 
you back the compliment. Give me back my own 
name, lest it seem that in scorn you have called me 
by that title of honour." 

This is very spirited ; and the merely rhetorical 
assertion by Caesar that Curio thus spoke to his sol- 
diers is in itself interesting, as showing us the way 
in which the legionaries were treated by their com- 
manders, and in which the greatest general, of that or 
of any age, thought it natural that a leader should 
address his troops. It is of value, also, as showing the 
difficulty of keeping any legion true to either side in 
a civil war, in which, on either side, the men must 
fight for a commander they had learned to respect, 



THE STORY hJP CURIO 143 

and against a commander they respected, — the com- 
mander in each case being a Eoman Imperator. 
Curio, too, as we know, was a man who on snch an 
occasion could use words. But that he used the words 
here put into his mouth, or any words Hke them, is 
very improbable. Caesar was anxious to make the best 
apology he could for the gallant young friend who 
had perished in his cause, and has shown his love 
by making the man he loved memorable to all pos- 
terity. 

But before the dark hour comes upon him the young 
man has a gleam of success, which, had he really 
spoken the words put into his mouth by Caesar, would 
have seemed to justify them. He attacks the army of 
his fellow-Eoman, Yarns, and beats it, driving it back 
into TJtica. He then resolves to besiege the town, 
and Csesar implies that he would have been successful 
through the Caesarean sympathies of the townsmen, — 
had it not been for the approach of the terrible Juba. 
Then comes a rumour which reaches Curio, — and 
which reaches Varus too inside the town, — that the 
IN'umidian king is hurrying to the scene with all his 
forces. He has finished another affair that he had on 
hand, and can now look to his Eoman friends, — and 
to his Eoman enemies. Juba craftily sends forward 
his proefect, or lieutenant, Sabura, with a small force 
of cavalry, and Curio is led to imagine that Juba has? 
not come, and that Sabura has been sent with scanty 
aid to the relief of Varus. Surely he can give a good 
account of Sabura and that small body of lN^umidia\ 
horsemen. We see from the very first that Curio is 



14:4 THE CIVIL WAR.- SECOND BOOK, 

doomed. Caesar, in a few touching words, makes his 
apology. " The young man's youth had much to do 
with it, and his high spirit ; his former success, too, 
and his own faith in his own good fortune." There is 
no word of reproach. Curio makes another speech to 
his soldiers. " Hasten to your prey," he says, " hasten 
to your glory ! " They do hasten, — after such a fashion 
that when the foremost of them reach Sahura's troops, 
the hindermost of them are scattered far back on the 
road. They are cut to pieces by Juba. Curio is in- 
vited by one of his officers to escape back to his tent. 
Bnt Csesar tells us that Curio in that last moment 
replied that having lost the army with which Caesar 
had trusted him, he would never again look Caesar in 
the face. That he did say some such words as these, 
and that they were repeated by that officer to Caesar, 
is probable enough. *' So, fighting, he is slain ; " — 
and there is an end of the man whom Caesar loved. 

What then happened was very sad for a Eoman army. 
Many hurry down to the ships at the sea ; but there is 
60 much terror, so much confusion, and things are so 
badly done, that but very few get over to Sicily. The 
remainder endeavour to give themselves up to Yarns ; 
^fter doing which, could they have done it, their posi- 
tion would not liave been very bad. A Roman surren- 
dering to a Roman would, at the worst, but find that 
he was compelled to change his party. But Juba comes 
«ap and claims them as his prey, and Yarns does not 
4are to oppose the barbarian king. Juba kills the most 
*^f them, but sends a few, whom he thinks may serve 
kis purpose and add to his glory, back to his own king- 



!| 



KING JUBA. 145 

dom. In doing which Juba behaved no worse than 
Caesar habitually behaved in Gaul j but Caesar always 
writes as though not only a Eoman must regard a Ro- 
man as more than a man, but as though also all others 
must so regard Eomans. And by making such assertions 
in their own behalf, Romans were so regarded. We 
are then told that the barbarian king of I^umidia rode 
into Utica triumphant, with Roman senators in his 
train ; and the names of two special Roman senators 
Caesar sends down to posterity as having been among 
that base number. As far as we can spare them, they 
shall be spared. 

Of Juba the king, and of his fate, we shall heai 
again. 



A. 0. voL iv. 



CHAPTEE XL 

THIRD BOOK OF THE CIVIL WAR.-— C^SAR FOLLOWS POMPEY 
INTO ILLYRIA. — THE LINES OF PETRA AND THE BATTLE OF 
PH ARSALIA. — B. C. 48. 

CiESAR begins the last Look of Ms last ComiHer tary by 
telling us that this was the year in which he. Caesar, 
was by the law permitted to name a consul, lie names 
Publius Servilius to act in conjunction with himself. 
The meaning of this is, that, as Caesar had been created 
Dictator, Pompey having taken with him into lUyria 
the consuls of the previous year, Caesar was now the 
only magistrate under whose authority a consul could 
be elected. ]N"o doubt he did choose the man, but the 
election was supposed to have been made in accordance 
with the forms of the Eepublic. He remained at Eome 
as Dictator for eleven days, during which he made vari- 
ous laws, of which the chief object was to lessen the 
insecurity caused by the disruption of the ordinary 
course of things; and then he went down to Brindisi on 
the track of Pompey. He had twelve legions with him, 
but he was badly off for ships in which to transport 
them ; and he owns that the health of the men is bad, 
an autumn in the south of Italy having been very severe 



POMPETS ARMY, 147 

on men accustomed to the healthy climate of Gaul and 
the north of Spain. Pompey, he tells us, had had a 
whole year to prepare his army, — a whole year, without 
warfare, and had collected men and ships and money, 
and all that support which assent gives, from Asia and 
the Cyclades, from Corcyra, Athens, Bithynia, Cilicia, 
Phoenicia, Egypt, and the free states of Achaia. He 
had with him nine Eoman legions, and is expecting two 
more with his father-in-law Scipio out of Syria. He has 
three thousand archers from Crete, from Sparta, and 
from Pontus ; he has twelve hundred slingers, and he 
has seven thousand cavalry from Galatia, Cappadocia, 
and Thrace. A valorous prince from Macedonia had 
brought him two hundred men, all mounted. Five hun- 
dred of Galatian and German cavalry, who had been left 
to overawe Ptolemy in Egypt, are brought to Pompey 
by the filial care of young Cnaeus. He too had armed 
eight hundred of their own family retainers, and had 
brought them armed. Antiochus of Commagena sends 
him two hundred mounted archers, — mercenaries, how- 
ever, not sent without promise of high payment. Dar- 
dani, — men from the land of old Troy, Bessi, from the 
banks of the Hebrus, Thessalians and Macedonians, 
have all been crowded together under Pompey's stan-"* 
dard. We feel that Caesar's mouth waters as he re- 
counts them. But we feel also that he is preparing for 
the triumphant record in which he is about to tell us 
that all these swarms did he scatter to the Avinds 
of heaven with the handful of Eoman legionaries 
which he at last succeeded in landing on the shores 
of Illyria. 



148 THE CIVIL WAR.-^THIRD BOOK. 

Pompey has also collected from all parts '' frumenti 
vim maximam'' — ^*a great power of corn indeed," as 
an Irishman would say, translating the words literally. 
And he has covered the seas with his ships, so as to 
hinder Caesar from coming out of Italy. He has eight 
vice-admirals to command his various fleets , — all of 
whom Caesar names ; and over them all, as adrairal-in- 
chief, is Bibulus, who was joint-consul with Caesar be- 
fore Caesar went to Gaul, and who was so harassed 
during his consulship by the Caesareans that he shut 
himself up in his house, and allowed Caesar to rule as 
sole consul. Now he is about to take his revenge ; 
but the vengeance of such a one as Bibulus cannot 
reach Caesar. 

Caesar having led his legions to Erindisi, makes them 
a speech which almost beats in impudence anything 
chat he ever said or did. He tells them that as they 
have now nearly finished all his work for him ; — they 
have only got to lay low the Eepublic with Pompey 
the Great, and all the forces of the Republic — to which, 
however, have to be added King Ptolemy in Egypt, 
King Pharnaces in Asia, and King Juba in [N'umidia ; — 
they had better leave behind them at Erindisi all their 
little property, the spoils of former wars, so that they 
may pack the tighter in the boats in which he means 
to send them across to Illyria, — if only they can escape 
the mercies of ex-Consul Admiral Bibulus. There is 
110 suggestion that at any future time they will recover 
their property. For their future hopes they are to trust 
entirely to Caesar's generosity. With one shout they 
declare their readiness to obey him. He takes over 



C^SAR CROSSES OUT OF ITALY INTO EPIRUS. 149 

seven legions, escaping the dangers of those '' rocks of 
evil fame," the Acroceraunia of which Horace tells us, 
— and escaping Bibulus also, who seems to have shnt 
himself up in his ship as he did before in his house dur- 
ing the consulship. Csesar seems to have made the pas- 
sage w^ith the conviction that had he fallen into the 
hands of Bibulus everything would have been lost. And 
with ordinary precaution and diligence on the part of 
Bibulus such would have been the result. Yet he makes 
the attempt, — trusting to the Fortune of Caesar, — and 
he succeeds. He lands at a place which he calls Pal- 
seste on the coast of Epirus, considerably to the south 
of Dyrrachium, in Hlyria. At Dyrracliium Pompey had 
landed the year before, and there is now stored that 
wealth of provision of which Caesar has spoken. But 
Bibulus at last determines to be active, and he does 
manage to fall upon the empty vessels which Caesar 
sends back to fetch the remainder of his army. " Hav- 
ing come upon thirty of them, he falls upon them with 
all the wrath occasioned by his own want of circum- 
spection and grief, and burns them. And in the same 
fire he kills the sailors and the masters of the vessels, 
— hoping to deter others," Caesar tells us, " by the se- 
verity of the punishment." After that we are not sorry 
to hear that he potters about on the seas very busy, 
but still incapable, and that he dies, as it seems, of a 
broken heart. He does indeed catch one ship after- 
wards, — not laden with soldiers, but coming on a pri- 
vate venture, with children, servants, and suchlike, de- 
pendants and followers of Caesar^s camp. All these, 
including the children, Bibulus slaughters, down to 



150 THE CIVIL WAR,— THIRD BOOK. 

the smallest child. We have, however, to remember 
that the story is told by Caesar, and that Caesar did not 
love Bibulus. 

Marc Antony has been left at Brindisi in command 
of the legions which Caesar could not bring across at his 
first trip for want of sufficient ship-room, and is pressed 
very much by Caesar to make the passage. There are 
attempts at treaties made, but as we read the account 
we feel that Caesar is only obtaining the delay which 
is necessary to him till he shall have been joined by 
Antony. We are told how by this time the camps of 
Caesar and Pompey have been brought so near toge- 
ther that they are separated only by the river Apsus, — 
for Caesar had moved northwards towards Pompey's 
stronghold. And the soldiers talked together across the 
stream ; " nor, the while, was any weapon thrown, — by 
compact between those who talked." Then Caesar 
sends Yatinius, as his ambassador, down to the river to 
talk of peace ; and Vatinius demands with a loud voice 
" whether it should not be allowed to citizens to send 
legates to citizens, to treat of peace ; — a thing that has 
been allowed even to deserters from the wilds of the P}^- 
renees and to robbers, — especially with so excellent an 
object as that of hindering citizens from fighting with 
citizens." This seems so reasonable, that a day is 
named, and Labienus,— who has deserted from Caesar 
and become Pompeian, — comes to treat on one side of 
the river, and Yatinius on the other. But, — so Caesar 
tells the story himself, — the Caesarean soldiers throw 
their weapons at their old general. They probably 
cannot endure the voice or sight of one whom they re- 



CjESar's army in ILLYRIA. 151 

gard as a renegade. LabienTis escapes under the pro- 
tection of those who are with him, — but he is full of 
wrath against Caesar. *^ After this," says he, "let us 
cease to speak of treaties, for there can be no peace for 
us till Caesar's head has been brought to us." But the 
colloquies over the little stream no doubt answered 
Caesar's purpose. 

Caesar is very anxious to get his legions over from 
Italy, and even scolds Antony for not bringing them. 
There is a story, — which he does not tell himself, — 
that he put himself into a small boat, intending to 
cross over to Brindisi in a storm, to hurry matters, and 
that he encouraged the awe-struck master of the boat 
by reminding him that he would carry " Caesar and his 
fortunes." The story goes on to say that the sailors 
attempted the trip, but were driven back by the tem- 
pest. 

At last there springs up a south-west wind, and An- 
tony ventures with his flotilla, — although the war-ships 
of Pompey still hold the sea, and guard the Illyrian 
coast. But Caesar's general is successful, and the second 
half of the Caesarean army is carried northward by fa- 
vouring breezes towards the shore in the very sight of 
Pompey and his soldiers at Dyrrachium. ~ Two ships, 
however, lag behind and fall into the hands of one 
Otacilius, an officer belonging to Pompey. The two 
ships, one full of recruits' and the other of veterans, 
agree to surrender, Otacilius having sworn that he will 
not hurt the men. " Here you may see," says Caesar, 
" how much safety to men there is in presence of mind." 
The recruits do as they have undertaken, and give them- 



152 THE CIVIL WAR.— THIRD BOOK. * 

selves up ; — whereupon Otacilius, altogether disregard- 
ing his oath, like a true Eoman, kills every man of 
them. But the veterans, disregarding their word also, 
and knowing no doubt to a fraction the worth of the 
word of Otacilius, run their ship ashore in the night, 
and, with much fighting, get safe to Antony. Caesar im- 
plies that the recruits even would have known better had 
they not been sea- sick ; but that even bilge-water and 
bad weather combined had failed to touch the ancient 
courage of the veteran legionaries. They were still 
good men — "item conflictati et tempestatis et sentinae 
vitiis." 

We are then told how Metellus Scipio, coming out of 
Syria with his legions into Macedonia, almost succeeds 
in robbing the temple of Diana of Ephesus on his 
way. He gets together a body of senators, who are to 
give evidence that he counts the money fairly as he 
takes it out of the temple. But letters come from 
Pompey just as he is in the act, and he does not dare to 
delay his journey even to complete so pleasant a trans- 
action. He comes to meet Pompey and to share his 
command at the great battle that must soon be fought. 
We hear, too, how Caesar sends his lieutenants into 
Thessaly and ^tolia and Macedonia, to try what 
friends he has there, to take cities, and to get food. 
He is now in a land which has seemed specially to be- 
long to Pompey; but even here they have heard of 
Caesar, and the Greeks are simply anxious to be friends 
with the strongest R( "^^ of the day. They have to 
judge which will win, and to adhere to him. Por the 
poor Greeks there is much difficulty in forming a judg- 



C^SAR IN ILLYRIA. 153 

ment. Presently we shall see tlie way in which Caesai 
gives a lesson on that subject to the citizens of Gomphi. 
In the mean time he joins his own forces to those lately 
brought by Antony out of Italy, and resolves that he 
will force Pompey to a fight. 

We may divide the remainder of this last book of 
the second Commentary into two episodes, — the first 
being the story of what occurred within the lines at 
Petra, and the second the account of the crowning 
battle of Pharsalia. In the first Pompey was the 
victor, — but the victory, great as it was, has won from 
the world very little notice. In the second, as all the 
world knows, Caesar was triumphant and henceforward 
dominant. And yet the affair at Petra should have 
made a Pharsalia unnecessary, and indeed impossible. 
Two reasons have conspired to make Pompey's com- 
plete success at Petra unimportant in the world's esteem. 
This Commentary was written not by Pompey but by 
Caesar; and then, unfortunately for Pompey, Pharsalia 
was allowed to follow Petra. 

It is not very easy to unravel Caesar's story of the 
doings of the two armies at Petra. ISTor, were this 
ever so easy, would our limits or the purport of this 
little volume allow us to attempt to give that narrative 
in full to our readers. Caesar had managed to join the 
legions which he had himself brought from Italy with 
those which had crossed afterwards with Antony, and 
was now anxious for a battle. His men, though fewer in 
number than they who follo""'' '^<Pompey, were fit for 
lighting, and knew all the work of soldiering. Pom- 
pey' s men were for the most part beginners ; — but 



154 THE CIVIL WAR.— THIRD BOOK. 

they were learning, and every week added to tlieir ex- 
perience was a week in Pompey's favour. Witb. hope of 
forcing a battle, Csesar managed to get his army between 
Dyrrachium, in which were kept all Pompey's stores 
and wealth of war, and the army of his opponent, so 
that Pompey, as regarded any approach by land, was shut 
off from Dyrrachium. But the sea was open to him. 
His fleefc was everywhere on the coast, while Caesar 
had not a ship that could dare to show its bow upon 
the waters. 

There was a steep rocky promontory some few miles 
north of Dyrrachium, from whence there was easy access 
to the sea, called Petra, or the rock. At this point 
Pompey could touch the sea, but between Petra and 
Dyrrachium Caesar held the country. Here, on this 
rock, taking in for the use of his army a certain some- 
what wide amount of pasturage at the foot of the rock, 
Pompey placed his army, and made intrenchments all 
round from sea to sea, fortifying himself, as all Poman 
generals knew how to do, with a bank and ditch and 
twenty- four turrets and earthworks that would make 
the place absolutely impregnable. The length of his 
lines was fifteen Eoman miles, — more than thirteen 
English miles, — so that within his works he might 
have as much space as possible to give him grass for 
his horses. So placed, he had all the world at his 
back to feed him. ISTot only could he get at that 
wealth of stores which he had amassed at Dyrrachium, 
and which were safe from Caesar, but the coasts of 
Greece, and Asia, and Egypt were open to his ships. 
Two things only were wanting to him, — sufficient grass 



THE LINES OF PETRA. 155 

for his horses, and water. But all things were want- 
ing to Caesar, — except grass and water. The Ill^^ian 
country at his hack was one so unproductive, heing 
rough and mountainous, that the inhabitants them- 
selves were in ordinary times fed upon imported corn. 
And Pompey, foreseeing something of what might hap- 
pen, had taken care to empty the storehouses and to 
leave the towns behind him destitute and impoverished. 

jN"evertheless Caesar, having got the body of his 
enemy, as it were, imprisoned at Petra, was determined 
to keep his prisoner fast. So round and in front of 
Pompey's lines he also made other lines, from sea to 
sea. He began by erecting turrets and placing small 
detachments on the little hills outside Pompey's lines, 
so as to prevent his enemy from getting the grass. 
Then he joined these towers by lines, and in this way 
surrounded the other lines, — thinking that so Pom- 
pey would not be able to send out his horsemen for 
forage ; and again, that the horses inside at Petra 
miglit gradually be starved ; and again '' that the repu- 
tation,^' — " auctoritatem," — " which in the estimation of 
foreign nations belonged chiefly to Pompey in this war, 
would be lessened when the story should have been 
told over the world that Pompey had been besieged by 
Caesar, and did not dare to fight." 

We are, perhaps, too much disposed to think, — read- 
ing our history somewhat cursorily, — that Caesar at this 
time was everybody, and that Pompey was hardly 
worthy to be his foe. Such passages in the Commen- 
tary as that above translated, — they are not many, but 
a few suffice, — show that this idea is erroneous. Up 



156 THE CIVIL WAR. -THIRD BOOK. 

to this period in their joint courses Pompey had been 
the greater man ; Caesar had done very much, but 
Pompey had done more — and now he had on his side 
ahnost all that was wealthy and respectable in Eome. 
He led the Conservative party, and was still confident 
that he had only to bide his time, and that Caesar 
must fall before him. Caesar and the Caesareans were 
to him as the spirits of the Revolution were in France 
to Louis XYI., to Charles X., and to Louis-Philippe, 
before they had made their powers credible and for- 
midable ; as the Reform Bill and Catholic Emancipa- 
tion were to such men as George TV. and Lord Eldon, 
w^hile yet they could be opposed and postponed. It 
was impossible to Pompey that the sweepings of Rome, 
even with Caesar and Caesar's army to help them, 
should at last prevail over himself and over the 
Roman Senate. '' He was said at that time," we are 
again translating Caesar's words, " to have declared with 
boasts among his own people, that he would not him- 
self deny that as a general he should be considered to 
be worthless if Caesar's legions should now extricate 
themselves from the position in which they had rashly 
entangled themselves without very great loss"— 
''maximo detrimento " — loss that should amount 
wellnigh to destruction. And he was all but right in 
what he said. 

There was a great deal of fightmg for the plots of 
grass and different bits of vantage-ground, — fighting 
which must have taken place almost entirely between 
the two lines. But Caesar suffered under this disad- 
vantage, that his works, being much the longest. 



THE LINES OF PETRA. 157 

required the greatest number of men to erect them 
and prolong them and keep them in order ; whereas 
Pompey, who in this respect had the least to do, having 
the inner line, was provided with, much the greater 
number of men to do it. Caesar's men, being veter- 
ans, had always the advantage in the actual fighting ; 
but in the mean time Pompey's untried soldiers were 
obtaining that experience which was so much needed 
by them. ^Nevertheless Pompey suffered very much. 
They could not get water on the rock, and when he 
attempted to sink wells, Caesar so perverted the water- 
courses that the wells gave no water. Caesar tells us 
that he even dammed up the streams, making little 
lakes to hold it, so that it should not trickle down in 
its underground courses to the comfort of his enemies ; 
but we should have thought that any reservoirs so 
made must soon have overfloAvn themselves, and have 
been useless for the intended purpose. In the mean 
time Caesar's men had no bread but what was made of 
a certain wild cabbage, — " chara," — which grew there, 
which they kneaded up with milk, and lived upon it 
cheerfully, though it was not very palatable. To shew 
the Pompeians the sort of fare with which real veter- 
ans could be content to break their fasts, they threw 
loaves of this composition across the lines ; for they 
were close together, and could talk to each other, and 
the Pompeians did not hesitate to twit their enemies 
with their want of provisions. But the Caesareans had 
plenty of water, — and plenty of meat; and they assure 
Caesar that they would rather eat the bark off the trees 
than allow the Pompeians to escape them. 



158 THE CIVIL WAR.- THIRD BOOK. 

But there was always this for Caesar to fear, — that 
Pompey should land a detachment behind his lines 
and attack him at the hack. To hinder this Caesar 
made another intrenchment, with ditch and bank, 
running at right angles from the shore, and was in- 
tending to join this to his main work by a transverse 
line of fortifications running along that short portion 
of the coast which lay between his first lines and the 
second, when there came upon him the disaster which 
nearly destroyed liim. While he was digging his 
trenches and building his turrets the fighting was so 
frequent that, as Csesar tells us, on one day there were 
six battles. Pompey lost two thousand legionaries, 
while Csesar lost no more than twenty; but every 
Caesarean engaged in a certain turret was wounded, and 
four officers lost their eyes. Caesar estimates that 
thirty thousand arrows were thrown upon the men 
defending this tower, and tells us of one Scaeva, an 
officer, who had two hundred and thirty holes made by 
these arrows in his own shield.''^ "We can only sur- 

* Dean Merivale in his account of this affair reduces the 
number of holes in Scaeva' s shield to one hundred and twenty, 
— on the joint authority, no doubt, of Florus and Valerius 
Maximus ; but Florus lived 20 ) and Val. Max. 300 years after 
Caesar. Suetonius allows the full number of holes, but implies 
that 120 were received while the warrior was lighting in one 
place, and 110 while fighting in another. Lucan sings the story 
of Scaeva at great length, but does not give the number of 
wounds in the shield. He seems to say that Scseva was killed on 
this occasion, but is not quite clear on the point. That Scaeva 
had one eye knocked out is certain. Lucan does indeed tell 
us, in the very last lines of his poem, that in Egypt Caesar once 
again eaw his beloved centurion ; — but at the moment described 



t 



THE LINES OF FETIiA. 159 

mise that it must have teen a very big shield, and that 
there must have heen much trouble in counting the 
holes. Caesar, however, was so much pleased that ho 
gave Scaeva a large sum of money, — something over 
.£500, and, allowing him to skip over six intermediate 
ranks, made him at once first centurion — or Primipilus 
of the legion. We remember no other record of such 
quick promotion — in prose. There is, indeed, the Avell- 
known case of a common sailor who did a gallant ac- 
tion and was made first-lieutenant on the spot ; but 
that is told in verse, and the common sailor was a lady. 
Two perfidious Gauls to whom Caesar had been very 
kind, but whom he had been obliged to check on ac- 
count of certain gross peculations of which they had 
been guilty, though, as he tells us, he had not time to 
punish them, went over to Pompey, and told Pompey 
all the secrets of Caesar's ditches, and forts, and mounds, 
— finished and unfinished. Before that, Caesar assures 
us, not a single man of his had gone over to the ene- 
my, though many of the enemy had come to him. But 
those perfidious Gauls did a world of mischief. Pompey, 
hearing how far Caesar was from having his works along 
the sea-shore finished, got togetlier a huge fieet of boats, 
and succeeded at night in throwing a large body of his 
men ashore between Caesar's two lines, thus dividing 
Caesar's forces, and coming upon tliem in their weakest 

even Csesarwas dismayed, and the commentators doubt whether 
it was not Scaeva's ghost that Csesar then saw. Valerius Maxi- 
mus is sure that Scteva was killed when he got the wounds ; — but, 
if so, how could he have been rewarded and promoted ? The 
matter has been very much disputed ; but here it has been 
thought best to adhere to Caesar. 



160 THE CIVIL WAR.--THIRD BOOK, 

point. Caesar admits that there was a panic in his 
lines, and that the slaughter of his men was very great. 
It seems that the A^ery size of his own works produced 
the ruin which befel them, for the different parts of 
them were divided one from another, so that the men 
in one position could not succour those in another. The 
affair ended in the total rout of the Ca^sarean army. 
Caesar actually fled, and had Pompey followed him we 
must suppose that then there w^ould have been an 
end of Caesar. He acknowledges that in the two 
battles fought on that day he lost 960 legionaries, 32 
officers, and 32 standards. 

And then Caesar tells us a story of Labienus, who had 
been his most trusted lieutenant in the Gallic wars, but 
who had now gone over to Pompey, not choosing to 
fight against the Eepublic. Labienus demanded of 
Pompey the Caesarean captives, and caused them all to 
be slaughtered, asking them with scorn whether veter- 
ans such as they were accustomed to run away. Caesar 
is very angry with Labienus ; but Labienus might have 
defended himself by saying that the slaughter of pri- 
soners of war was a custom he had learned in Gaul. 
As for those words of scorn, Caesar could hardly have 
heard them with his own ears, and we can understand 
that he should take delight in saying a hard thing of 
Labienus. 

Pompey was at once proclaimed Imperator. And 
Pompey used the name, though the victory had, 
alas ! been gained over his fellow-countrymen. *' So 
great was the effect of all this on the spirits and confi- 
dence of the Pompeians, that they thought no more of 
the carrying on of the war, but only of the victory 



THE LINES OF PETRA. 161 

they had gained." And then Caesar throws scora 
upon the Pompeians, making his own apology in the 
same words. *' They did not care to remember that 
the small number of our soldiers was the cause of their 
triumph, or that the unevenness of the ground and nar- 
rowness of the defiles had aught to do with it ; or 
the occupation of our lines, and the panic of our men 
between their double fortifications ; or our army cut 
into two parts, so that one part could not help the 
other. Nor did they add to this the fact that our men, 
pressed as they were, could not engage themselves in 
a fair conflict, and that they indeed suflered more from 
their own numbers, and from the narrowness of the 
ravines, than from the enemy. JS'or were the ordinary 
chances of war brought to mind, — how small matters, 
such as some unfounded suspicion, a sudden panic, a 
remembered superstition, may create great misfortune ; 
nor how often the fault of a general, or the mistake of 
an officer, may bring injury upon an army. But they 
spread abroad the report of the victory of that day 
throughout all the world, sending forth letters and 
tales as though they had conquered solely by their own 
valour, nor was it possible that there should after this 
be a reverse of their circumstances." Such was the 
affair of Petra, by which the relative position in the 
world-history of Caesar and Pompey was very nearly 
made the reverse of what it is. 

Caesar now acknowledges that he is driven to change 
the whole plan of his campaign. He addresses a 
f^jjeech to his men, and explains to them that this 
defeat, like that at Gergovia, may lead to their future 

A. c. vol. iv. L 



162 THE CIVIL WAR.— THIRD BOOK. 

success. The victory at Alesia had sprung from the 
defeat of Gergovia, because the Gauls had been in- 
duced to fight ; and from the reverses endured within 
the lines of Petra might come the same fortune; — for 
surely now the army of Pompey would not fear a 
battle. Some few officers he punishes and degrades. 
His own words respecting his army after their defeat 
are very touching. "So great a grief had come from 
this disaster upon the whole arm}'-, and so strong a 
desire of repairing its disgrace, that no one now desired 
the place of tribune or centurion in his legion ; and 
all, by way of self-imposed punishment, subjected 
themselves to increased toil ; and every man burned 
with a desire to fight. Some from the higher ranks 
were so stirred by Caesar's speech, that they thought 
that they should stand their ground where they were, 
and fight where they stood." But Csesar was too 
good a general for that. He moves on towards the 
south-east, and in retreating gets the better of Pompey, 
who follows him with jonly half a heart. After a 
short while Pompey gives up the pursuit. His father- 
in-law, Scipio, has brought a great army from the 
east, and is in Thessaly. As we read this we cannot 
fail to remember how short a time since it was that 
Caesar himself was Pompey's father-in-law, and that 
Pompey was Caesar's friend because, with too uxorious 
a love, he clung to Julia, his young wife. Pompey 
now goes eastward to unite his army to that of Scipio ; 
and Caesar, making his way also into Thessaly by a 
more southern route, joins certain forces under his 
lieutenant Calvinus, who had been watching Scipio, 



PHARSALIA, 163 

and who harely escaped falling into Pompey's handa 
before lie could reach Caesar. But wherever Fortune 
or Chance could mterfere, the Gods were always kind 
to Caesar. 

Then Caesar tells us of his treatment of two towns 
in Thessaly, Gomphi and Metropolis. Unluckily for 
the poor Gomphians, Caesar reaches Gomphi first. 
Now the fame of Pompey's victory at Petra had been 
spread abroad; and the Gomphians, who, — to give them 
their due, — would have been just as willing to favour 
Caesar as Pompey, and who only wanted to be on the 
winning side that they might hold their little own in 
safety, believed that things were going badly with 
Caesar. They therefore shut their gates against Caesar, 
and sent off messengers to Pompey. They can hold 
their town against Caesar for a little while, but Pompey 
must come quickly to their aid. Pompey comes by 
no means quick enough, and the Gomphians' capacity 
to hold their own is very short-lived. At about three 
o'clock in the afternoon Caesar begins to besiege the 
town, and before sunset he has taken it, and given it 
to be sacked by his soldiers. The men of Metropolis 
were also going to shut their gates, but luckily they 
hear just in time what had happened at Gomphi, — and 
open them instead. AYhereupon Caesar showers pro- 
tection upon Metropolis ; and all the other tow^ns of 
Thessaly, hearing what had been done, learn what 
Caesar's favour means. 

Pompey, having joined his army to that of Scipio, 
sliares all his honours with his fatlier-iii-law. Wlicu 
we hear this we know that Pompey 's position was not 



164 THE CIVIL WAR.— THIRD BOOK. 

comfortable, and that he was under constraint. He 
was a man who would share his honour with no one 
unless driven to do so. And indeed his command 
at present was not a pleasant one. It was much for 
a Eoman commander to have with him the Eoman 
Senate, — but the senators so placed would be apt to be 
less obedient than trained soldiers. They even accuse 
him of keeping them in Thessaly because he likes to 
lord it over such followers. But they were, neverthe- 
less, all certain that Caesar was about to be destroyed; 
and, even in Pompey's camp, they quarrel over the 
rewards of victory which they think that they will 
enjoy at Eome when their oligarchy shall have been 
re-established by Pompey's arms. 

Before the great day arrives Labienus again ap- 
pears on the scene ; and Caesar puts into his mouth a 
speech which he of course intends us to compare with 
the result of the coming battle. "Do not think, 
Pompey, that this is the army which conquered Gaul 
and Germany," — where Labienus himself was second 
in command under Caesar. " I was present at all 
those battles, and speak of a thing which I know. A 
very small part of that army remains. Many have 
perished, — as a matter of course in so many battles. 
The autumn pestilence killed many in Italy. Many 
have gone home. Many have been left on the other 
shore. Have you not heard from our own friends who 
remained behind sick, that these cohorts of Caesar's 
were made up at Brindisi ? " — made up but the other 
day, Labienus implies. " This army, indeed, has been 
renewed from levies in the two Gauls ; but all that it 



PHARSALIA. 165 

had of strength perished in those two battles at Dyr- 
rachium ; " — in the contests, that is, within the lines of 
Petra. Upon this Labienus swears that he will not 
sleep under canvas again until he sleeps as victor over 
Caesar ; and Pompey swears the same, and everybody 
swears. Then they all go away full of the coming 
victory. We daresay there was a great deal of false 
confidence; but as for the words which Caesar puts 
into the mouth of Labienus, we know well how much 
cause Caesar had to dislike Labienus, and we doubt 
whether they were ever spoken. 

At length the battle-field is chosen, — near the town 
of Pharsalus, on the banks of the river Enipeus in 
Thessaly. The battle has acquired world-wide fame as 
that of Pharsalia, which we have been taught to regard as 
the name of the plain on which it was fought. Neither 
of these names occur in the Commentary, nor does 
that of the river; and the actual spot on which the 
great contest took place seems to be a matter of doubt 
even now. The ground is Turkish soil, — near to the 
mountains which separate modern Greece from Turkey, 
and is not well adapted for the researches of historical 
travellers. Caesar had been keeping his men on the 
march close to Pompey, till Pompey found that he 
could no longer abstain from fighting. Then came 
Labienus with his vaunts, and his oath, — and at length 
the day and the field were chosen. Caesar at any rate 
was ready. At this time Caesar was fifty- two years 
old, and Pompey was fivQi years his elder. 

Caesar tells us that Pompey had 110 cohorts, or eleven 
legions. Had the legions been full, Pompey's army 



166 THE CIVIL WAR.^THIRD BOOK. 

would have contained 66,000 legionaries ; but C?esfiT 
states their number at 45,000, or something over two- 
thirds of the full number. He does not forget to tell 
us once again that among these eleven were the two 
legions which he had given up in obedience to the de- 
mand of the Senate. Pompey himself, with these two 
very legions, placed himself on the left away from the 
river ; and there also were all his auxiliaries, — not 
counted with the legionaries, — slingers, archers, and 
cavalry. Scipio commanded in the centre with the 
legions he had brought out of Syria. So Caesar tells 
us. We learn from other sources that Lentulus com- 
manded Pompey' s right wing, lying on the river — and 
Domitius, whom we remember as trying to hold Mar- 
seilles against young Brutus and Trebonius, the left. 
Caesar had 80 cohorts, or eight legions, which should 
have numbered 48,000 men had his legions been full ; 
— but, as he tells us, he led but 22,000 legionaries, so 
that his ranks were deficient by more than a half. 
As was his custom, he had his tenth legion to the 
right, away from the river. The ninth, terribly 
thinned by what had befallen it within the lines at 
Petra, joined to the eleventh,lay next the river, form- 
ing part of Caesar's left wing. Antony commanded 
the left wing, Domitius Calvinus, whom Caesar some- 
times calls by one name and sometimes by the other, 
the centre, — and Sulla the right. Caesar placed himself 
to the right, with his tenth legion, opposite to Pompey. 
As far as we can learn, there was but little in the 
nature of the ground to aid either of them; — and so 
the light began. 

There is not much complication, and perhaps no 



PHARSALIA. 167 

great interest, in the account of tlie actual bactie as it 
is given by Caesar. Caesar makes a speech, to his army, 
"which was, as we have already learned, and as he tells 
us now, the accustomed thing to do. JSTo Mser speech 
was ever made by man, if he spoke the words which 
he himself reports. He first of all reminds them how 
they themselves are witnesses that he has done his 
best to insure peace ; — and then he calls to their memory 
certain mock treaties as to peace, in which, when seek- 
ing delay, he had pretended to engage himself and 
his enemy. He had never wasted, he told them, the 
blood of his soldiers, nor did he desire to deprive 
the Eepublic of either army — " alterutro exercitu" — of 
Pompey's army or of his own. They were both 
Eoman, and far be it from him to destroy aught 
belonging to the Republic. We must acknowledge 
that Caesar was always chary of Eoman life and Eoman 
blood. He would spare it when it could be spared; 
but he could spill it like water when the spilling of 
it was necessary to his end. He was very politic; but 
as for tenderness, — neither he nor any Eoman knew 
what it was. 

Then there is a story of one Crastinus, who declares 
that whether dead or alive he will please Caesar. He 
throws the first weapon against the enemy and does 
please Caesar. But he has to please by his death, for 
he is killed in his effort. 

Pompey orders that his first rank shall not leave its 
order to advance, but shall receive the shock of Caesar's 
attack. Caesar points out to us that he is wrong in 
this, because the very excitement of a first attack gives 
increased energy and strength to the men. Caesar*s 



168 THE CIVIL WAR,— THIRD BOOK. 

legionaries are told to attack, and they rush over the 
space intervening between the first ranks to do so. 
But they are so well trained that they pause and 
catch their breath before they throw their weapons. 
Then they throw their piles and draw their swords, 
and the ranks of the two armies are close pitted against 
each other. 

But Pompey had thought that he could win the 
battle, almost withjut calling on his legionaries for 
any exertion, by the simple strategic movement of his 
numerous cavalry and auxiliaries. He outnumbered 
Csesar altogether, but in these arms he could overwhelm 
him with a cloud of horsemen and of archers. But 
Caesar also had known of these clouds. He fought 
now as always with a triple rank of legionaries, — but 
behind his third rank, — or rather somewhat to their 
right shoulder, — he had drawn up a choice body of men 
picked from his third line, — a fourth line as it were, 
— whose business it was to stand against Pompey's 
clouds when the attempt should be made by these 
clouds upon their right flank. Caesar's small body of 
cavalry did give way before the Pompeian clouds, and 
the horsemen and the archers and the slingers swept 
round upon Caesar's flank. But they swept round 
upon destruction. Caesar gave the word to that fourth 
line of picked men. '^Illi — they," says Caesar, "ran 
forward with the greatest rapidity, and with their 
standards in advance attacked the cavalry of Pompey 
with such violence that none of them could stand their 
ground ; — so that all not only were forced from the 
ground, but being at once driven in panic, they sought 
the shelter of the highest mountains near them. And 



\ 



PHARSALIA. 169 

when they were thus removed, all the archers and the 
slingers, desolate and unarmed, without any one to take 
care of them, were killed in heaps. '^ Such is Caesar's 
account of Pompey's great attack of cavalry which 
was to win the battle without giving trouble to the 
legions. 

Caesar acknowledges that Pompey's legionaries drew 
their swords bravely and began their share of the fight- 
ing well. Then at once he tells us of the failure on 
the part of the cavalry and of the slaughter of the 
poor auxiliary slingers, and in the very next sentence 
gives us to understand that the battle was won. 
Though Pompey's legions were so much more numer- 
ous than those of Caesar, we are told that Caesar's third 
line attacked the Pompeian legionaries when they were 
"defessi'' — worn out. The few cohorts of picked 
men who in such marvellous manner had dispersed 
Pompey's clouds, following on their success, turned the 
flank of Pompey's legions and carried the day. That 
it was all as Caesar says there can be little doubt. 
That he \von the battle there can, we presume, be 
no doubt. Pompey at once flew to his camp and 
endeavoured to defend it. Eut such defence was 
impossible, and Pompey was driven to seek succour 
in flight. He found a horse and a few companions, 
and did not stop till he was on the sea-shore. Then 
he got on board a provision-vessel, and was heard to 
complain that he had been betrayed by those very men 
from whose hands he had expected victory. 

We are told with much picturesque effect how 
Caesar's men, hungry, accustomed to endurance, patient 
in all their want, found Pompey's camp prepared for 



170 THE CIVIL WAR,— THIRD BOOK, 

victory, and decked in luxurious preparation for the 
senatorial victors. Couclies were strewn, and plate 
was put out, and tables prepared, and the tents of these 
happy ones were adorned with fresh ivy. The sena- 
torial happy ones have but a bad time of it, either 
perishing in their flight, or escaping into the desert 
solitudes of the mountains. Caesar follows up his con- 
quest, and on the day after the battle compels the great 
body of the fugitives to surrender at discretion. He 
surrounds them on the top of a hill and shuts them 
out from water, and they do surrender at discretion. 
With stretched-out hands, prone upon the earth, these 
late conquerors, the cream of the Roman power, who 
had so lately sworn to conquer ere they slept, weeping 
beg for mercy. Caesar, having said a few words to 
them of his clemency, gave them their lives. He re- 
commends them to the care of his own men, and desires 
that they may neither be slaughtered nor robbed. 

Caesar says he lost only 200 soldiers in that battle 
— and among them 30 officers, all brave men. That 
gallant Crastinus was among the 30. Of Pompey's 
army 15,000 had been killed, and 24,000 had surren- 
dered ! 180 standards and 9 eagles were taken and 
brought to Caesar. The numbers seem to us to be 
almost incredible, whether we look at those given to 
ns in regard to the conqueror or the conquered. Caesar's 
account, however, of that day's work has hitherto been 
taken as authoritative, and it is too late now to ques- 
tion it. After this fashion was the battle of Pharsalia 
won, and the so-called Eoman Republic brought to an 
end. 

But Caesar by no means thought that his work was 



THE FLIGHT OF POMPEY, -171 

done ; — nor indeed was it nearly done. It was now 
clearly his first duty to pursue Pompey, — whom, 
should he escape, the outside provinces and distant 
allies of the Eepublic would soon supply with another 
army. '* Caesar thought that Pompey was to be pur- 
sued to the neglecting of all other things." In the 
mean time Pompey, who seems to have been panic- 
struck by his misfortune, fled with a few friends down 
the ^gean Sea, picked his young wife up at an island 
as he went, and made his way to Egypt. The story of 
his murder by those who had the young King of Egypt 
in their keeping is well known and need not detain us. 
Caesar tells it very shortly. Pompey sends to young 
Ptolemy for succour and assistance, trusting to past 
friendship between himself and the young king's father. 
Ptolemy is in the hands of eunuchs, adventurers, and 
cut-throat soldiers, and has no voice of his own in the 
matter. But these ruffians think it well to have Pom- 
pey out of the way, and therefore they murder him. 
Achillas, a royal satrap, and Septimius, a Roman sol- 
dier, go out to Pompey's vessel, as messengers from the 
king, and induce him to come down into their boat. 
Then, in the very sight of his wife, he is slaughtered, 
and his head is carried away as proof of the deed. 
Such was the end of Pompey, for whom no fortune 
had seemed to be too great, till Caesar came upon the 
scene. We are told by the Eoman poet, Lucan, who 
took the battle of Pharsalia as his difficult theme, that 
Caesar could bear no superior, and Pompey no equal. 
The poet probably wished to make the latter the more 
magnanimous by the comparison. To us, as we ex- 
amine the character of the two generals, Caesar seems 



172 THE CIVIL WAR.-THIRD BOOK. 

at least as jealous of power as his son-in-law, and cer« 
tainly was the more successful of the two in extruding 
all others from a share in the power which he coveted. 
Pompey in the triumvirate admitted his junior to 
more, as he must have felt it, than equal power: 
Caesar in the triumvirate simply made a stepping-stone 
of the great man who was his elder. Pompey at^ 
Thessaly was forced to divide at least the name of his 
power with Scipio, his last father-in-law : but Caesar 
never gave a shred of his mantle to be worn by another 
soldier. 

In speaking, however, of the character of Pompey, 
and in comparing it with that of his greater rival, it 
may probably be said of him that in all his contests, 
both military and political, he was governed by a love 
of old Eome, and of the Eepublic as the greatest 
national institution which the world had ever known, 
and by a feeling which we call patriotism, and of 
which Caesar was, — perhaps, we may say, too great to be 
capable. Pompey desired to lead, but to lead the be- 
loved Eepublic. Caesar, caring nothing for the things of 
old, with no reverence for the past, utterly destitute of 
that tenderness for our former footsteps which makes 
so many of us cling with passionate fondness to con- 
victed errors, desired to create out of the dust of the 
Eepublic, — which fate and his genius allowed him to 
recast as he would, — something which should be better 
and truer than the Eepublic. 

The last seven chapters of the third book of this 
Commentary form a commencement of the record of 
the Alexandrine war, — which, beyond those seven 
chapters, Caesar liimself did not write. That he 



C^SAR FOLLOWS POMPEY TO EGYPT. 173 

should have written any Commentary amidst the 
necessary toils of war, and the perhaps more pressing 
emergencies of his political condition, is one of the 
greatest marvels of human power. He tells us now, 
that having delayed but a few days in Asia, he followed 
Pompey first to Cyprus and then to Egypt, taking with 
him as his entire army three thousand two hundred 
men. " The rest, worn out with wounds, and battles, 
and toil, and the greatness of the journey, could not 
follow him.'* But he directed that legions should be 
made up for him from the remnants of Pompey's broken 
army, and, with a godlike trust in the obedience of ab- 
sent vassals, he went on to Egypt. He tells us that 
he was kept in Alexandria by Etesian winds. But we 
know also that Cleopatra came to him at Alexandria, 
requiring his services in her contest for the crown of 
Egypt ; and knowing at what price she bought them, 
we doubt the persistent malignity of the Etesian winds. 
Had Cleopatra been a swarthy Nubian, as some have 
portrayed her, Csesar, we think, would have left Alex- 
andria though the Etesian winds had blown in his very 
teeth. All winds filled Caesar's sails. Caesar gets pos- 
session of Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy, who, in accord- 
ance with their father's will, was to have reigned in 
conjunction with his sister, and the Alexandrians 
rise against him in great force. He slays Photinus, 
the servant of King Ptolemy, has his own ambassador 
slain, and burns the royal fleet of Egypt, — burning 
with it, unfortunately, the greater part of the royal 
library. " These things were the beginning of the 
Alexandrine war." These are the last words of Caesar's 
last Commentary. 



OHAPTEE XIL 



CONCLUSION. 



Having concluded his ten short chapters descriptive 
of the ten books of the Commentaries written by Cse- 
sar himself, the author of this little volume has finished 
his intended task, — and as he is specially anxious not 
to be thought to have made an attempt at writing his-, 
tory, he would not add any concluding words, were it 
not that three other Commentaries of Caesar's three 
other wars were added to Caesar's Commentaries by 
other writers. There is the Commentary on the Alex- 
andrine war, — written probably by Hirtius, the author 
of the last book of the Gallic war ; and two Commen- 
taries on the African war and the Spanish war, — writ- 
ten, as the critics seem to think, by one Oppius, a 
friend whom Caesar loved and trusted. The Alexan- 
drine war was a war of itself, in which Caesar was in- 
volved by his matchless audacity in following Pompey 
into Egypt, and perhaps by the sweetness of Cleopa- 
tra's charms. And this led also to a war in Asia Minor, 
the account of which is included with that of his Egyp- 
tian campaign. The African war, and that afterwards 



CONCLUSION, 175 

carried on in Spain with the object of crushing out the 
sparks of Pompeian revolt against his power, are sim- 
ply the latter portions of the civil war, and their re- 
cords might have been written as chapters added to the 
Commentary " De Eello CivilL" 

Alexandria, when Caesar landed there in pursuit of 
Pompey and had offered to him as a graceful tribute 
on his first arrival the head of his murdered rival, was 
a city almost as populous and quite as rich as Eome ; 
and in the city, and throughout the more fertile parts 
of Egypt, there was a crowd of Roman soldiers left 
there to support and to overawe the throne of the 
Ptolemies. Csesar, with hardly more than half a full 
legion to support him, enters Alexandria as though 
obedience were due to him by all in Egypt as Eoman 
consul. He at once demands an enormous sum of 
money, which he claims as due to himself personally 
for services rendered to a former Ptolemy ; he takes 
possession of the person of Ptolemy the young king, — 
and is taken possession of by Cleopatra, the young king's 
sister, who was joint -heir with her brother to the throne. 
In all his career there was perhaps nothing more auda- 
cious than his conduct in Egypt. The Alexandrians, 
or rather perhaps the Roman army in Egypt under the 
leading of the young king's satraps, rise against Caesar, 
and he is compelled to fortify himself in the town. He 
contrives, however, to burn all the Egyptian fleet, and 
with it unfortunately the royal library, as we were told 
])y himself at the end of the last Commentary. Ho at 
length allows Ptolemy to go, giving him back to the 
Egyptians, and thinking that the young king's presence 



176 CONCLUSION. 

may serve to allay the enmity of the Alexandrians. 
The young king wept at leaving Caesar, and declared 
that even his own kingdom was not so dear to him as 
the companionship of Caesar. But the crafty false-faced 
boy turns against Caesar as soon as he is free to do so. 
Caesar never was in greater danger ; and as one reads 
one feels one's self to be deprived of the right to say that 
no more insane thing was ever done than Caesar did 
when he swaggered into Alexandria without an army 
at his back, — only by the remembrance that Caesar was 
Caesar. First, because he wanted some ready money, 
and secondly, because Cleopatra was pretty, Caesar nearly 
lost the world in Egypt. 

But there comes to his help a barbarian ally, — a 
certain Mithridates of Pergamus, a putative son of the 
great Mithridates of Pontus. Mithridates brings an 
army to Caesar's rescue, and does rescue him. A great 
battle is fought on the Mle, — a battle which would have 
been impossible to Caesar had not Mithridates come to 
his aid, — and the Egyptians are utterly dispersed. Young 
Ptolemy is drowned; Cleopatra is settled on her throne; 
and Egypt becomes subject to Caesar. Then Caesar 
hurries into Asia, finding it necessary to quell the arro- 
gance of a barbarian who had dared to defeat a Roman 
general. The unfortunate conqueror is Pharnaces, the 
undoubted son of Mithridates of Pontus. But Caesar 
comes, and sees, and conquers. He engages Pharnaces 
at Zela, and destroys his army ; and then, we are told, 
inscribed upon his banners those insolent words — 
*' Veni, vidi, vici." He had already been made Dicta- 
tor of the Eoman Empire for an entire year, and had 



CONCLUSION, 177 

revelled with Cleopatra at Alexandria, and was becom- 
ing a monarch. 

These were the campaigns of the year 47 B.C., and 
the record of them is made in the Commentary ^'De 
Bello Alexandrino." 

In the mean time things have not been going altogether 
smoothly for Cassar in Italy, although his friends at 
Rome have made him Dictator. His soldiers have mu- 
tinied against their officers, and against his authority; 
and a great company of Pompeians is collected in that 
province of Africa in which poor Curio was conquered 
by Juba, — when Juba had Eoman senal^ors walking 
in his train, and Cassar's army was destroyed. The 
province called by the name of Africa lay just opposite 
to Sicily, and was blessed with that Roman civilisation 
which belonged to the possessions of the Republic 
which were nearest to Rome, the great centre of 
all things. It is now the stronghold of the Republi- 
can faction, — as being the one spot of Roman ground in 
which Ctesar had failed of success. Pompey, indeed, is 
no more, but Pompey' s two sons are here, — and Scipio, 
Pompey's father-in-law, whom Pompey had joined with 
himself in the command at Pharsalus. Labienus is 
here, who, since he turned from Caesar, has been more 
Pompeian than Pompey himself; and Afranius, to 
whom Caesar was so kind in Spain ; and Petreius and 
King Juba, — of whom a joint story has yet to be told ; 
and Varus, who held the province against Curio; — and 
last of all there is that tower of strength, the great Cato, 
the most virtuous and impracticable of men, who, 
in spite of his virtue, is always in the wrong, and of 

A. 0. voL iv. M 



178 CONCLUSIOir. 

whom the world at large only remembers that he was 
fond of wine, and that he destroyed himself at XJtica. 

They are all at Utica, — and to them for the present 
XJtica is Eome. They establish a Senate; and Scipio, 
who is unworthy of the great name he bears, and is in- 
competent as a general, is made commander-in-chief, 
because Cato decides that law and routine so require. 
Scipio had been consul, — ^had been joint commander 
with Pompey, — and his rank is the highest. The same 
argument had been used when he was joined in that 
command, — that it was fitting that such power should 
be given to him because he was of consular rank. The 
command of the Eepuhlican fleet had been intrusted 
to Bibulus on the same ground. We never hear of 
Caesar so bestowing promotion. He indeed is now and 
again led away by another fault, trusting men simply 
because he loves them, — by what we may call favourit- 
ism, — as he did when he allowed Curio to lose his army 
in Africa, and thus occasioned all this subsequent 
trouble. As we read of Seipio's rank we remember that 
we have heard of similar cause for ill-judged promo- 
tion in later times. The Pompeians, however, collect 
an enormous army. They have ten Homan legions, 
and are supported, moreover, by the whole force of 
King Juba. This army, we are told, is as numerous as 
that which Pompey commanded at Pharsalus. There 
is quarrelling among them for authority ; quarrelling as 
to strategy; jealousy as to the barbarian, with acknow- 
ledged inability to act without him; — and the reader 
feels that it is all in vain. Caesar comes, having quelled 
the mutiny of his own old veterans in Italy by a few 



CONCLUSION, 179 

words. He has gone among them fearing nothing; 
they demand their discharge — he grants it. They 
require the rewards which they think to be their due, 
and he tells them that they shall have their money, — 
when he has won it with other legions. Then he ad- 
dresses them not as soldiers, but as "citizens " — " Qui- 
rites;" and that they cannot stand; it implies that 
they are no longer the invincible soldiers of Caesar. 
They rally round him ; the legions are re-formed, and 
he lands in Africa with a small army indeed, — at first 
with little more than three thousand men, — and is again 
nearly destroyed in the very first battle. But after a few 
months campaigning the old story has to be told again. 
A great battle is fought at Thapsus, a year and five 
months after that of Pharsalia, and the Eepublic is 
routed again and for ever. The commentator tells us 
that on this occasion the ferocity of Caesar's veterans 
was so great, that by no entreaties, by no commands, 
could they be induced to cease from the spilling of blood. 
But of the destruction of the leaders separate stories 
are told us. Of Cato is the first story, and that best 
known to history. He finds himself obliged to sur- 
render the town of Utica to Caesar; and then, " he him- 
self having carefully settled his own affairs, and having 
commended his children to Lucius Caesar, who was 
then acting with him as his quaestor, with his usual 
gait and countenance, so as to cause no suspicion, he 
took his sword with him into his bedroom when it was 
his time to retu^e to rest, — and so killed himself." 
Scipio also killed himself. Afranius was killed by 
Caesar's soldiers. Labienus, and the two sons of Pom- 



180 CONCLUSION. 

pey, and Varus, escaped into Spain. Then comes the 
story of King Juba and Petreius. Juba had collected 
his wives and children, and all his wealth of gold and 
jewels and rich apparel, into a town of his called Zama; 
and there he had built a vast funeral-pile, on which, 
in the event of his being conquered by Csesar, he in- 
tended to perish, — meaning that his wives and children 
and dependants and rich treasures should all be burned 
with him. So, when he was defeated, he returned to 
Zama; but his wives and children and dependants, 
being less magnificently minded than their king, and 
knowing his royal purpose, and being unwilling to 
become ornaments to his euthanasia, would not let 
him enter the place. Then he went to his old Eo- 
man friend Petreius, and they two sat down together 
to supper. Petreius was he who would not allow 
Afranius to surrender to Caesar at Lerida. When they 
have supped, Juba proposes that they shall fight each 
other, so that one at least may die gloriously. They 
do fight, and Petreius is quickly killed. " Juba being 
the stronger, easily destroyed the weaker Petreius with 
his sword.'* Then the barbarian tried to kill himself; 
but, failing, got a slave to finish the work. The battle 
of Thapsus was fought, B.C. 47. J^umidia is made a 
province by Csesar, and so Africa is won. We may 
say that the Eoman Republic died with Cato at Utica. 
The Spanish war, which afforded matter for the last 
Commentary, is a mere stamping out of the embers. 
Caesar, after the afi'air in Africa, goes to Rome ; and the 
historian begins his chronicle by telling us that he is 
detained there " muneribus dandis,"— by the distribu- 



. CONCLUSION, 181 

tion of rewards, — keeping his promise, no doubt, to thrxse 
veterans whom he won back to their military obedience 
by calling them " Quirites," or Eoman citizens.^ The 
sons of Pompey, Cnaeus and Sextus, have collected to- 
gether a great number of men to support their worn-out 
cause, and Ave are told that in the battle of Munda 
more than 30,000 men perished. But that was the 
end of it. Labienus and Varus are killed ; and the 
historian tells us that a funeral was made for them. 
One Scapula, of whom it is said that he was the pro- 
moter of all this Spanish rebellion, eats his supper, has 
himself anointed, and is killed on his funeral -pile. 
Cnaeus, the elder son of Pompey, escapes wounded, 
but at last is caught in a cave, and is killed. Sextus, 
the younger, escapes, and becomes a leading rebel for 
some years longer, till at last he also is killed by one 
of Antony's officers. 

This Commentary is ended, or rather is brought to 
an untimely close, in the middle of a speech which 
Caesar makes to the inhabitants of Hipsala, — Seville, — 
in which he tells them in strong language how well he 
behaves to them, and how very badly they have be- 

* Not in the Commentary, but elsewhere, we learn that lie 
now triumphed four times, for four different victories, taking 
care to claim none for any victory won over Eoman soldiers. 
On four different days he was carried through the city with his 
legions and his spoils and his captives. His first triumph was 
for the Gallic wars ; and on that day Vercingetorix, the gallant 
Gaul Avhom we remember, and who had now been six years in 
prison, was strangled to do Caesar honour. I think we hate 
Ca3sar the more for his cruelty to those who were not Romans, 
because policy induced him to spare his countrymen. 



182 CONCLUSION, 



JO 



haved to him. But we reach, an ahrupt termination 
in the middle of a sentence. 

After the battle of Munda Caesar returned to Eome, 
and enjoyed one year of magnificent splendour and 
regal power in Rome. He is made Consul for ten years, 
and Dictator for life. He is still high priest, and at 
last is called King. He makes many laws, and perhaps 
adds the crowning jewel to his imperishable diadem of 
glory by reforming the calendar, and establishing a 
proper rotation of months and days, so as to comprise 
a properly-divided year. Bat as there is no Commen- 
tary of this year of Caesar's life, our readers will not 
expect that we should treat of it here. How he was 
struck to death by I>rutus, Cassius, and the other con- 
spirators, and fell at the foot of Pompey's statue, gather- 
ing his garments around him gracefully, with a policy 
that was glorious and persistent to the last, is known 
to all men and women. 

** Then burst his mighty heart ; 
And in his mantle muffling up his face, 
Even at the base of Pompey's statua, 
Which all the while ran blood, Great Caesar fell.** 

That he had done his work, and that he died in 
time to save his name and fame from the evil deeds 
of which unlimited power in the State would too 
probably have caused the tyrant to be guilty, was 
perhaps not the least fortunate circumstance in a career 
which for good fortune has been unequalled in history. 

THE END. 



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